DEFORM-Heat Treatment Wizard Lab

HEAT TREATMENT WIZARD LAB

1. Starting a new problem

2. Initialization

3. Import geometry

4. Generate mesh

5. Material definition

6. Workpiece initialization

7. Medium definition

8. Schedule definition

9. Simulation control

10. Submit simulation

11. Post processing

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DEFORM-Heat Treatment Wizard Labs

Problem Summary:
The Heat Treatment Wizard is a convenient tool to set up complex multiple-operation heat
treatment problem. This lab will demonstrate how to use this wizard to prepare a carburizationquench-tempering simulation of a steel part. This lab can also help users understand the
capabilities of DEFORM-HT's phase transformation calculation scheme.

1. Starting a new problem

Start a new Heat Treatment Wizard problem with problem ID "GearHT". You can do so
by clicking the New problem button and choose Heat treatment. Alternatively, you
can right click on the directory tree to create an empty directory and click Heat treatment
on the right side of the main window.

2. Initialization
In the "Initialization" dialog, set the "Unit System" to SI. Turn on "Deformation",
"Diffusion", and "Phase Transformation". Click "Next".

DEFORM-Heat Treatment Wizard Lab

3. Import geometry
In page Geometry, choose import from a geometry, KEY, or DB file and click Next.
Go to directory Labs/, and load geometry file GearTooth.STL.

4. Generate mesh
In page Mesh Generation, use 8000 for unstructured mesh. Use 1 layer of structured
surface layer, set "Thickness mode" to be "ratio to object overall dimension", and 0.005 for
the layer thickness. (The structured surface mesh helps provide better thermal and
diffusion solution accuracy with less computing time.) Click Next.

DEFORM-Heat Treatment Wizard Labs

5. Material definition
In page Material, choose Import from .DB and .KEY and click Next. Import
material "Demo_Temper_Steel.KEY" from directory labs/.
You can click button "Advance" to view and edit the material and transformation data.
Note that this is a complex mixture material with eight constituents (phases), including
Austenite (A), Pearlit+Banite (PB), Martensite (B), Ferrite (F), Low-carbon Martensite
(LM), Temper Banite (TB), Temper Ferrite+Cementite (TFC). The transformation
kinetics between the phases include A->F, A->PB, A->TB, A->M, PB->A, M->LM, M>A, LM->TFC, TB->A, and TFC->A. Among these kinetics, A->F, A->PB, A->TB, M>LM, and LM->TFC are diffusion-controlled defined by TTT curves. A->M uses
Martensitic transformation model, and PB->A, M->A, TB->A, and TFC->A use
simplified diffusion model. In addition, A->F has an equilibrium volume fraction that
depends on carbon contents.

DEFORM-Heat Treatment Wizard Lab

DEFORM-Heat Treatment Wizard Labs

6. Workpiece initialization
In page "Workpiece initialization", for "Temperature", choose "Uniform" and set 20 C.
For "Atom", choose "Uniform" and input 0.2. For "Phase volume fraction", choose
"Uniform" and set 1.0 for "Pearlite + Banite", and zero for the rest.

7. Medium definition
In page Medium details, you will define various media and heat transfer zones
associated with them.
1) Rename the first medium to Heating Furnace and set the default heat transfer
coefficient (HTC) to constant 0.1.

DEFORM-Heat Treatment Wizard Lab

2) Add medium Carb. Furnace (Carb. for Carburization). Set the default heat transfer
coefficient (HTC) to constant 0.05.
For Carb. Furnace, input 0.0001 for the "Diffusion Surface Reaction Rate".
3) Add a media Oil. Deactivate the "Radiation".
Input 5.5 for the "default" HTC.
Add a heat transfer zone (Zone #1) to the media Oil. Click on the workpiece boundary to
specify this zone to the bottom of the workpiece as shown in the graph below. Note that
you may need to change the picking modes in the low-left window in order to specify the
zone properly.

For Zone #1, define the HTC as a function of temperature as follows:

Temperature
20
250
500
750
1000

HTC
2.1
2.8
6.8
4.0
2.5

4) Add one more media Air. Input 0.02 for the default HTC.

DEFORM-Heat Treatment Wizard Labs

8. Schedule definition
In Schedule page, input a five-stage schedule as explained below.

1) Half an hour (1800 s) of pre-heating at 550C.

2) Two hours (7200 s) of carburization at 850C. Specify the "Atom" content to be 0.8.
3) 20 minutes (1200 s) of oil quench with oil temperature 100C.
4) 30 minutes (1800 s) of tempering at 280C.
5) One hour (3600 s) cooling in the air.

9. Simulation control
In "Step Definition", change "Temp. change per step" to 2. Accept other default settings.
Next, two symmetric planes need to be specified as in the following graph. (Note that this
geometry represents half a tooth of the gear.) The user should add the "symmetric planes"
before picking corresponding surface on the object.

DEFORM-Heat Treatment Wizard Lab

In addition, as elasto-plastic deformation will be modeled, some fixed-node boundary conditions

need to be specified here. To do so, select a boundary condition item and then assign it to
appropriate boundary nodes. For this model, as the symmetric planes provide X, Y direction and
rotational constraints, we only need constraints in the Z direction. Here, we fix a node on the
bottom as shown in the following graph.

DEFORM-Heat Treatment Wizard Labs

Next, click "Finish" button to generate the Keyword file (.KEY), Database file (.DB) and
multiple operation control file (.MST).

10. Submit simulation

Exit Heat Treatment Wizard and click "Run" in the Main window, just like submitting a
regular simulation. DEFORM simulation engine will detect the multiple operation control
file and execute accordingly.

DEFORM-Heat Treatment Wizard Lab

11. Post processing

After the simulation is completed, use Post Processor to view the simulation results. The
temperature min-max history should be like the graph blow:

In post-processing, we recommend following tasks to be performed:

1. Examine the state of the work-piece after oil quenching. The state variables of interest
may include carbon content, volume fractions of Martensite (M), Ferrite (F), and Perlite +
Banite (PB), and the residual stress. Note that at this point, M is as high as 0.77 near
tooth surface, and the maximum effective stress is ~470 KSI. (Such high stress may not
exist in real life as the work-piece cracks.)
2. Check the same state variables after tempering. Note that M is reduce to ~0.2 near
tooth surface, most of which is transformed into Tempered Ferrite + Cementite (TFC).
The maximum effective stress is reduced to ~180 KSI
3. In addition, point tracking phase volume fractions at different locations of the workpiece can be helpful for understanding the complex phenomena occurred during the
carburization and heat treatment.

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