Investigation of heat treatment of gears using a simultaneous dual frequency inducting heating method

Abstract

A heat treatment of gears (increasing hardness in the surface layers of gear teeth) significantly enhances the quality and performance of gears in terms of resistance to ware and abrasion and fatigue strength. Recently, a simultaneous dual frequency (SDF) induction heating technology has emerged as the most effective and efficient heat treatment method. It strives to achieve “uniform” temperature distributions along the outer contour of gears by applying two input currents simultaneously [1, 2]. The amplitude and frequency of both currents are regulated independently to control the hardening depth at the root and the tip of the gear teeth [3]. Obtaining the best combinations of the input frequencies and powers experimentally is very costly and time consuming. Thus, many researches have been concentrated on determining these parameters using simulation methods, but they require tremendous computational time and resources [4, 5]. In an effort to reduce computational costs in determining SDF input parameters, this paper proposes a 2D FE modeling method, and it experimentally evaluates the heat treatments of gears using a SDF induction heating system with the parameters obtained with 2D FE analysis.