Metallo-Thermo-Mechanical Coupled Analysis of Quenching Process for the Plane Strain Problems

Abstract

Abstract Quenching technology is a high non-linear process in which temperature, phase-transformation, and stress/strain affect each other. In this paper, the coupling computation configuration among temperature, phase-transformation, and stress is presented, and the temperature-dependent variation of thermo-physical properties is considered in the FEM simulation. In order to reduce the iteration times and keep the simulation accuracy, an improved method for calculating the elastic-plastic ratio is presented. A plane strain component is regarded as the study objective, and its FEM model is built in the paper. The effects of the initial strains on the quenching residual stresses are simulated using the self-developed FEM software in the quenching process, and the initial strains include the strain induced by temperature, the strain induced by the phase-transformation, and the phase-transformation plasticity. The variation curves of stress components in the representative positions during the quenching are given. The evolvement of the elastic region and plastic region in the quenched part is simulated and analyzed, and the boundary displacements and distortion of the quenched part are also given.