Using Smoothed-Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) Method to Model Flows in Quenching Processes as an Alternative to Finite Volume Method (FVM) CFD

Quenching is a critical step in metal heat treatment to produce high strength materials. For quenching processes that employ gas or liquid as quench media, fluid dynamics plays a pivotal role in determining whether the process can produce parts of good properties or it may introduce defects such as distortion or cracks. To simulate the fluid motion in quenching processes utilizing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method for the purpose of virtual product verification, a widely adapted practice is to utilize finite volume method (FVM) based CFD tools to model the flow and predict heat transfer. Although these CFD tools have been validated with experimental data and proven useful for industrial applications, they still have their inefficiencies. The most noticeable one is the requirement of building a good quality mesh for each design iteration, even though the geometry changes might be small. In addition, for complicated quenching processes involving liquid or multi-phase flow such as spray quenching, setting up a FVM model is extremely and unnecessarily complicated. In this paper, we present a new approach to model the flow in air/spray quenching processes using a meshless, smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method. While the FVM is a Eulerian flow solver with a wide range of applications, the SPH method is a Lagrangian flow solver that offers different but unique advantages. The merits and limitations of both FVM and SPH are compared and discussed from theory and application point of view.