Contemporary methods for cooling time calculation and hardening processes analyzing

The paper discusses contemporary methods of quenching processes analyzing and cooling time evaluation to provide engineers with the correct data needed for hardening process interruption. It is shown that intensive interrupted cooling combined with the optimized chemical composition of steel allows reduce distortion and increase service life of steel parts due to creation of high compressive residual stresses at the surface of quenched products. Examples of calculations are supported by analytical equations and computer code HART- TANDEM developed and used in Ukraine within 1978 – 1998. The paper is illustrated with many images: phase and stress distribution, distortion and quench cracks prediction. It is underlined that contemporary powerful software such as DANTE (Dowling et al., 1996; Ferguson et al., 2002), HEARTS (Inoue et al., 1992; Inoue, 2002) and many others can investigate all aspects of hardening processes including carburization and quenching under pressure if correct data on boundary condition are available. The DATABASE on cooling characteristics of liquid quenchants is not developed yet and in spite of existing powerful software no quick progress can be made without careful investigation of liquid quenchants. Authors of the paper hope that big companies interested in making benefits and quick progress connected with hardening processes will do investments to investigate carefully liquid quenchants and create for them DATABASE suitable for computer simulation on the basis of testing Liscic/Petrofer probes of different sizes and forms.