Reducing Heat Treat Distortion with Repeating Precision by use of 4 Dimensional High Pressure Gas Quenching

Heat treatment with oil, polymer or gas quenching has been the standard quenching practices used since heat treatment was discovered. This is because those methods were the only way to take a component and cool it fast enough to generate the desired microstructure. While these quenching methods have proven to be effective to create the desired microstructure, the resulting distortion created by these methods have made it difficult to conduct post manufacturing operations to correct the quenching distortion and produce a finished component. A newer method of quenching has been developed, practiced and proven to not only reduce heat treatment distortion, it can nearly eliminate it while providing precise repeatability for each component processed. This method is called 4 Dimensional Quenching (4DQ) where it utilizes high pressure gas as the quenching media with precise control of gas flow across the component. 4DQ provides the ability to fully control and/or adjust the quenching profile during a quenching cycle to optimize the quench and control how the component reacts throughout the full quenching process. This process has been proven on aerospace materials such as 9310, 8620, 440C, Ferrium C64 and Pyrowear to name a few.