Automotive Designers and Heat Treaters Have Choices: Pros and Cons of Competing Hardening Processes and Materials
- Reduce distortion in low-mass transmission gears
- Reduce vehicle weight to improve fossil fuel economy
- Reduce fossil fuel emissions like CO2, CO and PM
- Improve range of hybrid and EV
Automotive heat treating has benefited from much development recently due to need for high production and PPA to improve efficiency.
The paper “Automotive Designers and Heat Treaters Have Choices: Pros and Cons of Competing Hardening Processes and Material” will present advantages and disadvantages of quenching options like HPGQ , Oil and Press Quenching and Austempering for steel and ADI to achieve target reductions listed.
Each process provides unique solutions for automobile designers and plant engineers, however there likely is no single process/material that provides all the desired answers. What process or combination of processes satisfies the overall need? Detail will be discussed about how OEM’s and users take advantage of a particular hardening process.
There are two challenges auto designers must take into account to acquire the goals listed: 1) emissions produced during acceleration to cruising speed and 2) vehicle’s overall weight. Both parameters can only be achieved by applying appropriate heat treating and quenching process to the appropriate material.