Coupling CFD and Oil Quench Hardening Analysis of Gear Component

During liquid quenching process, the type of the quenching media, agitation and flow pattern have significant effect on the cooling behavior through the three typical phases between the liquid and solid interface, which will affect the cooling rate, phase transformation, stress evolution and shape change of the quenched components. In this paper, transient CFD analysis using AVL FIRE^® is coupled with heat treatment analysis using DANTE^® to simulate an oil quench hardening process of a carburized test gear made of Pyrowear^® 53. During the coupling analyses, the heat flux between the gear and the oil calculated in the CFD model is applied to the solid heat treatment model, and the gear surface temperature predicted by the heat treatment model is passed back to the transient CFD model. The coupling of CFD and heat treatment analyses provides a more robust application of computer modeling in the heat treatment industry.