A comparative study on cooling performance of hot oil and molten salt media for industrial heat treatment

The present work presents a comprehensive comparative study on the cooling performance of hot oil and molten NaNO₂ eutectic mixture quench media. The study was conducted using a cylindrical Inconel probe of 16ϕ and 60mm length. This probe was heated to 860°C and quenched in the quench bath maintained at a desired operating temperature. Cooling curves at different locations in the probe were acquired using thermocouples- DAQ system. The temperature data was recorded in PC and was subsequently used to calculate spatially dependent transient heat flux at the metal quenchant interface. Inverse heat conduction method illustrated by Pranesh and Prabhu [3] was used in this work.