Soumya S. Mohapatra Satya V.

Ravikumar
Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, India

Ravi Ranjan
Department of Metallurgical Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, India

Ultra Fast Cooling and Its Effect on the Mechanical Properties of Steel
The objective of this work is to study about the ultrafast cooling of a hot static 6 mm thick steel plate (AISI-1020) by air assisted spray cooling. The study covers the effect of air ow rate and the water impingement density on the cooling rate. The initial temperature of the plate, before the cooling starts, is kept at 900  C. The spray was produced from a full cone high mass ux and low turn down ratio air atomizer at a xed nozzle to plate distance. The cooling rate shows that low turn down ratio air atomized spray can generate ultra fast cooling (UFC) rate for a 6 mm thick steel plate. After cooling, the tensile strength and hardness of the cooled steel plate were examined. The surface heat ux and surface temperature calculations have been performed by using INTEMP software. The result of this study could be applied in designing of fast cooling system especially for the run-out table cooling. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4025638] Keywords: atomized spray, UFC, tensile strength, hardness, transition, nucleate

Surjya K. Pal
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, India

Shiv Brat Singh

Department of Metallurgical Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, India

Sudipto Chakraborty1
Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, India e-mail: sc@che.iitkgp.ernet.in

Introduction

Modern steels used in the manufacturing of ship, buildings, automobile industries, and large gas pipe lines require high tensile strength and toughness combined with good weldability which are directly related to the microstructure of the steel. The nal microstructure of the steel is, in turn, strongly dependent on the cooling rate which the plate/strip is subjected to immediately after rolling [13]. In steel industry, in a typical hot rolling mill, steel plate is cooled on the run-out table which is tted with different types of cooling systems. The conventional laminar cooling system produces slow cooling rate (30  C/s 80  C/s) which is not adequate for the production of high tensile strength steels. The biggest challenge for achieving high cooling rate at high surface temperature is the Leidenfrost phenomena [4]. Due to this, a vapor layer covers the cooling surface and as a result the heat transfer rate decreases drastically [5]. Hence, obtaining high cooling rate at high surface temperature is the main thrust for the development of UFC technology. Depending upon the plate thickness, the cooling rate may be 300  C/s for a 4 mm thick strip [68]. For thicker plates, Cornet and Herman [9] made an effort to dene ultrafast cooling in terms of multiplication factor of strip thickness and cooling rate. According to their study, ultrafast cooling is said to be achieved when the product of plate thickness (mm) and cooling rate (  C/s) is preferably greater than 800. In practice, irrespective of thickness, cooling rate obtained by ultrafast cooling technology is always higher in magnitude than that of achieved by using any conventional cooling technique.
1 Corresponding author. Contributed by the Heat Transfer Division of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF HEAT TRANSFER. Manuscript received March 29, 2012; nal manuscript received August 8, 2013; published online November 28, 2013. Assoc. Editor: Wei Tong.

In air atomized spray cooling, ne water droplet is sprayed by using compressed air on the surface to be cooled and especially in evaporative quenching; droplets on the heated surface evaporate and do not merge in a water lm [1012]. Other advantages of air atomized spray cooling are: (1) uniform cooling is produced by air atomized spray, (2) during air atomized spray cooling, high volumetric ow of air sweeps the partially evaporated droplets from the hot surface thereby preventing lm boiling, (3) atomized spray produces ner droplets, and (4) at high initial surface temperatures, the heat transfer coefcient in atomized spray cooling could be three times higher than conventional spray cooling [13,14]. The relationship between the heat transfer characteristics of an air atomized spray with droplet distribution and its dynamics have also been reported by Refs. [1517]. The authors in their earlier work studied different cooling methods (water jet, water spray, and air atomized spray) employed for a hot steel plate and it was observed that the air atomized spray produces the highest cooling rate [18].Therefore, air atomized spray cooling at high initial surface temperatures has been found to be a promising quenching technology, and hence employed in the current work. It has been observed that the droplet diameter [19] and spray impingement density play signicant role in the case of air atomized spray cooling. The experimental study by Oliveria and Sousa [20] on air atomized spray behavior at low impingement density (8 kg/m2 s) and at very low air/water ratio reveals that the surface heat ux is independent of spray impingement density due to the onset of lm boiling at high surface temperature (700  C). Puschmann and Specht [13] studied air-atomized spray cooling by an internal mixing air blast atomizer but at very low impingement density of 4 kg/m2s and at high initial surface temperature (900  C). They found that surface heat ux removal rate increased with impingement density at high air pressure. The work reported by Al-Ahmadi and Yao [14], says that the heat ux MARCH 2014, Vol. 136 / 032101-1

Journal of Heat Transfer

C 2014 by ASME Copyright V

Downloaded From: http://heattransfer.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 02/13/2014 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms

Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of the experimental set-up

is strongly affected by air ow rate even at high impingement density and surface temperature. In addition to the above, the information provided by Alam et al. [21] concludes that due to high volumetric ow of air (low turn down ratio nozzle, Lechler 156.103) the surface heat ux removal rate increased up to impingement density of 33 kg/m2s. However, the maximum surface temperature considered by these workers was 510  C only. Moreover, in open published literature, the information on air atomized spray cooling at high surface temperature (900  C) and high impingement density is not available. The current study covers ultra fast cooling of a hot stationary steel plate at an initial surface temperature of 900  C by an airassisted spray with the maximum air/water ratio of 15 105, which is very high in comparisons to the air water ratio of 0.5 105 m3/s and 2.16 104 m3/s reported by the previous researchers [21] and [22], respectively. In addition to the above, in the current work, the maximum impingement density is 400 kg/ m2 s, which is also very high in comparison to the maximum impingement density of around 33 kg/m2s reported by other researcher [21]. As each experiment was conducted at high air/ water ratio, the effect of superposed air is a dominating factor even at high impingement density. Hence, in the current work authors expect that high volumetric ow of air at high impingement density will produce high droplet renewal rate because of the effect of superposed air ow on the hot surface. Moreover, this droplet renewal rate is one of the important criteria for the production of fast cooling rate.

switched on to make the spray ready. The ow rate of water and air were controlled by valves, and measured by the rotameters. Initially, the spray was covered and during this the hot steel plate was taken out from the mufe furnace and placed on the cooling pad. The spray cover was then removed and the cooling experiment was started. The entire temperature history during the experiment was recorded by the DAS and saved in the personal computer for further analysis. The schematic diagram of the experimental set-up is shown in Fig. 1. 2.2 Nozzle Characteristics and Droplet Diameter. For the current research, an internal mixing air atomizing nozzle having low turn down ratio was used (Lechler 170.801). Table 1 shows the different operational conditions for successful atomization of water by compressed air as found in the data sheet from the supplier of the nozzle. It has been noticed that the air ow rate is very high and due to this a strong superposed ow of air is generated during cooling. The variation of volumetric mean diameter of droplet with air ow rate was calculated using the data sheet provided by the nozzle supplier and the results are presented in Fig. 2. It can be seen that the droplets become gradually ner with the increasing air ow rate. The maximum droplet diameter of 150 lm is achieved at air ow rate of 20 N m3/h, whereas the minimum diameter of 33 lm is obtained at air ow rate of 120 N m3/h. 2.3 Estimation of Surface Heat Flux by INTEMP Software. For the calculation of surface heat ux and surface temperature, an inverse heat conduction software (INTEMP) developed by Trujillo [2426] has been used. For the current work using INTEMP, a 2D planer model has been employed with 6 mm thickness and 100 mm length corresponding to the actual steel plate used in the experiments. Total 3340 quadratic elements with four nodes per element has been used to discretize the plate geometry. Except the impinging surface (top surface), the remaining three sides are assumed to be adiabatic. The cooling surface (top surface) is divided into three constant heat ux zones which include all type of heat losses (convective, conductive and also the
Table 1 Prescribed operating conditions of the nozzle Air flow rate (Fa) at the indicated pressure (N m3/h) Water flow rate (Fw) (m3/s) 105 3.33 6.67 10 13.3 16.7 Pa 0.1 MPa 30 25 22 20 18 Pa 0.2 MPa 55 52 46 44 45 Pa 0.3 MPa 77 72 67 66 64 Pa 0.4 MPa 105 96 90 82 79

Experimental Setup

2.1 Measurement Apparatus. In the current work, all the experiments were conducted on a 6 mm thick (100 100 mm2) square shape AISI-1020 steel plate. For the measurement of temperature during experimentation, in the plate three K-type of thermocouples having diameter 3 mm (TC1, TC2, and TC3) were inserted parallel to the quenching surface to avoid the error induced due to the thermocouple hole diameter [23]. The locations of the thermocouples inside the steel plates are X1 20 mm, Y1 3 mm for thermocouple TC1; X2 50 mm, Y2 3 mm for thermocouple TC2 and X3 70 mm, Y3 3 mm for thermocouple TC3, respectively. The time-temperature histories were collected with the help of a data acquisition system (DAS) (NI-USB-6210 from National Instrument, USA) at a sampling rate of 10 data per second. The air atomized spray was produced from a full cone internal mixing air assisted atomizer (Lechler: 170.801) from a xed nozzle to plate distance (60 mm) and it was kept vertically down ward to get the maximum gravity effect. The atomizer was connected with the air and water supply and these supply lines consist of rotameters and regulators to get the exact amount at the desired pressure. The plate was initially heated up to a temperature of 1050  C in a mufe furnace. After proper soaking of the steel plate inside the mufe furnace at 1050  C, pump and air compressor were 032101-2 / Vol. 136, MARCH 2014

Transactions of the ASME

Downloaded From: http://heattransfer.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 02/13/2014 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms

Table 2 Dimensions of at tensile specimen as specied in ASTM E-8 Parameter Gauge length (G) Width (W) Thickness (T) Radius of llet (R) Overall length (L) Length of grip section (B) Width of grip section (C) Dimension (mm) 25.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 100 30.0 18.0

Fig. 2

The variation of droplet diameter with air ow rate

radiation heat transfer) from the impinging surface. The rst zone is extending from x 0 to 35 mm (Z1); second is from x 3565 mm (Z2); and third is from x 65100 mm (Z3). The data recorded by the three thermocouples are used as the input to the software as the temperature-time histories at the nodes, corresponding to the location of the thermocouples. The nodes are numbered as 1715 at position X1 20 mm, Y1 3 mm for thermocouple TC1; 1765 at position X2 50 mm, Y2 3 mm for thermocouple TC2; and 1797 at position X3 70 mm, Y3 3 mm for thermocouple TC3, respectively. Figure 3 shows the computational domain as described above. 2.4 Tensile and Hardness Testing. Specimens for tensile test were prepared according to ASTM-E8 standard as shown in Table 2. After the cooling experiments, the plates were cut using bandsaw and machined to the required shape as shown in Fig. 4. Tensile test was carried out in universal tensile testing machine (INSTRON 8862) having maximum load capacity of 100 kN and at a cross-head speed of 2 mm/min. Hardness test was carried out using a Vickers hardness testing machine (UHL-VHMT 001). The steel samples for hardness examination were sectioned to 10 mm square piece and the top surface (the surface directly cooled by air atomized spray) was polished using different grades of emery papers. Final polishing was performed by using 1 lm diamond compound on disc polishing machine. During testing, the full load of (100 gf) was normally applied for 1015 s. The two diagonals of the indentation left on the surface of the material after the removal of the load were measured using a microscope and their average was considered for calculation of hardness. 2.5 Material Characterization. The composition of the steel plate used for the experiments was examined by an optical emission spectroscope (Model No: ARL 3640) and the obtained chemical analysis is given in Table 3. The carbon percentage was found to be 0.18% (by weight). The carbon percentage and other

Fig. 4 Sketch of tensile specimen (ASTME-8; Table 3)

Table 3 Chemical compositions (wt. %) of steel plate used in the experiments Element (Wt. %) C 0.18 Si 0.26 Mn 0.57 S 0.08 P 0.15 Ni 0.02

Table 4 Thermal conductivity (W/m K) 51.9

Material properties of steel Specific heat (J/kg K) 486 Tensile strength (MPa) 440 Vickers hardness (0.1 kgf/mm2) 172

Density (kg/m3) 7858

Poisson ratio 0.270.30

elements present in the current steel plate conform to AISI-1020 standard. The material properties are listed in Table 4. The average material properties (density, specic heat, and thermal conductivity) have been taken from the previous research [27]. Before the experimentation, the tensile strength and the hardness of the materials were measured and they are also shown in Table 4.

Results and Discussions

In the current research, water ow rate and air ow rate have been considered as the operating variables and the experimental design is shown in Table 5. All the variables were xed at 4 equal intervals within the range of maximum level and minimum level

Fig. 3 Computational domain of the steel plate for INTEMP

Journal of Heat Transfer

MARCH 2014, Vol. 136 / 032101-3

Downloaded From: http://heattransfer.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 02/13/2014 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms

Table 5 Experimental design Name of the variable Air ow rate (N m3/h) Water ow rate (m3/s) Maximum level 40 6.67 10
5

Minimum level 25 16.37 10

5

No of level (25,30,35, and 40) (6.67,10,13.33, and 16.67) 105

Fig. 6 The variation of local spray density at constant air ow rate of 40 N m3/h

Fig. 5 The variation of local spray density at constant water ow rate of 6.67 3 1025 m3/s

shown in Table 5 so that a total of 16 experiments were conducted for the current set. Mechanical properties of steel are strongly dependent on their microstructure which in turn depends on the cooling rate it has been subjected to after hot rolling. In the current study, the air ow rate and water ow rate were varied to obtain different cooling rates. Thereafter, the microstructure, tensile properties, and hardness of the cooled steel plate were examined to study the affect of cooling rate on these properties. 3.1 Impingement Density. Spray water impingement density which is dened as the amount water impinging per unit area per unit time was measured using an indigenously designed and fabricated Patternator for all the 16 experimental conditions studied. To observe the effect of air ow rate on impingement density and its local variation along the radial direction, the measured impingement density at different air ow rate for a xed water ow rate was analyzed and the results are shown in Fig. 5. It can be seen that variation of impingement density along the radial directions from the spray axis in both the direction decreases for all the cases. As the air/water ratio increases the spray spreads radially and the local impingement density at the spray axis decreases which is conrmed by the work of earlier researchers [13]. It is presumed that at high air/water ratio the superposed air ow is stronger than that at low air/water ratio and this makes the impingement density to be more uniform along the radial direction. In addition to the above, the effect of water ow rate on spray impingement density at constant air ow rate but at different water ow rate has been studied, Fig. 6. Here also it is noticed that the local impingement density is maximum at the spray center and decreases along the radial direction. However, it is observed that local impingement density increases with increasing water ow rate as expected. The variation of average water impingement density with water ow rate and air ow rate is shown in Fig. 7. The average water impingement density increases with the increasing water ow rate at constant air ow rate. However, at a constant water ow rate, 032101-4 / Vol. 136, MARCH 2014

Fig. 7 The variation of average water impingement density with air and water ow rates

the average impingement density decreases with the increasing air ow rate due to the increasing formation of ne droplets in the resultant air atomized spray. A mathematical co-relation among the average impingement density, air ow rate, and water ow rate has been developed and it is presented in Eq. (1). The determination coefcient (R2) of the developed correlation is 0.98. Id 238:34 6079 105 FW 76:33 Fa 1015 F2 w
5 19:21 F2 a 180 10 Fa Fw

(1)

In the current work, different combination of air ow rate and water ow rate produces same water impingement density. But, the cooling rate and surface heat ux are affected by the air ow rate due to the superposed ow effect of air. For the same impingement density, at different air ow rates, the observed cooling rates and the surface heat uxes are different. Therefore, the cooling rates and the surface heat ux have been presented as a function of air and water ow rate instead of water impingement density. 3.2 Cooling Curves. As per the experimental design described earlier a total of 16 numbers of experiment were conducted and the time-temperature history measured by the thermocouple was recorded for each of these experiments. From these Transactions of the ASME

Downloaded From: http://heattransfer.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 02/13/2014 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms

Fig. 8 Variation of temperature at different locations during atomized spray cooling

Fig. 10 Variation of surface heat ux with time as calculated using INTEMP

time-temperature history, the surface heat ux and surface temperature were calculated for each case with the help of INTEMP software. Only one such result is presented here as a representative case to understand the cooling behavior of the steel plate during the experiments. The remaining results have however been used to analyze the effect of air and water ow rate on the cooling rate, illustrated later. The time-temperature history recorded by the thermocouples as the cooling progressed is shown in Fig. 8 at different locations of the plate. During this experiment, the water ow rate and the air ow rate were maintained at 13.37 105 m3/s and 35 N m3/h, respectively. Before the atomized spray was turned on, the three thermocouples show the same temperature which conrms the proper thermal soaking of the steel plate inside the furnace resulting in uniform temperature. The initial 33.5 s of cooling is due to the natural convection and thereafter the atomized spray cooling starts, which is evident from the sharp fall of temperature at all the three locations. It is observed that the temperature at locations corresponding to thermocouples TC2 and TC3 decrease more rapidly than thermocouple TC1. To understand this cooling behavior, photographs were taken during the experimentation and one such photograph which was taken just after the spray touches the hot plate has been shown in Fig. 9. It shows that a dark circular area appears around the spray center, and moreover, the radius of this area is equal to the radius of the circular area produced by the

direct impinging droplets. The dark circular area is produced due to the forced convection cooling by the impinging droplets. Here, it is seen that thermocouple TC2 under the forced convection cooling area and as a consequence TC2 exhibit the higher temperature drop than the thermocouple TC1 and TC3. In addition to the above, thermocouple TC3 shows higher drop than TC1 because between TC1 and TC3, TC3 is the nearest thermocouple from the spray center. The experimental temperature data corresponding to Fig. 8 have been used as input to the INTEMP software for estimation of surface heat ux and surface temperature and their variation with time is shown in Figs. 10 and 11, respectively. The point at which atomized spray cooling starts in Fig. 8 has been considered as the initial time (t 0) for both the gures. The initial surface heat ux removal rate increases with time up to 4.5 s. This is due to the onset of transition boiling within the time period of 04.5 s. At t 4.5 s, the surface heat ux removal rate reaches a maximum value of 2.65 MW/m2 and thereafter the nucleate boiling starts and as a result the surface heat ux decreases with time. The same trend was observed by Al-Ahmadi and Yao [14]. The variation of calculated surface temperature with time shown in Fig. 11 shows that the surface temperature decreases sharply in the time period of t 1.33.2 s due to cooling in the transition boiling regime and within this short time period the surface temperature decreases from 900  C to 600  C.

Fig. 9 Photograph taken during experimentation

Fig. 11 Variation of surface temperature with time

Journal of Heat Transfer

MARCH 2014, Vol. 136 / 032101-5

Downloaded From: http://heattransfer.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 02/13/2014 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms

Fig. 12 Variation of surface heat ux with water ow rate (Fw)/ impingement density (Id)

Fig. 13 Variation of surface heat ux with air ow rate (Fw 5 6.67 3 1025 m3/s)

increases with air ow rate up to 30 N m3/h, and thereafter it decreases. 3.3 Transient Effect of Water Flow Rate on Surface Heat Flux. The variation of surface heat ux with time at different water ow rates is shown in Fig. 12. All the surface heat ux removal curves in Fig. 12 show the same trend; initially it increases with time due to the onset of transition boiling and thereafter, because of nucleate boiling surface heat ux removal rate decreases. The variation in surface heat ux removal rate at different water ow rate is very small in the transition boiling regime whereas the maximum variation is observed in nucleate boiling regime. The reason for above is that water ow rate/impingement density plays a more effective role in nucleate boiling regime than the transition boiling regime [18]. Moreover, it is observed that on increasing the water ow rate there is a signicant improvement in the critical heat ux. The effect of air ow rate on the surface heat ux has also been investigated. It is noticed that with high air ow rate an air atomizing nozzle always produces ne water droplets along with a superposed air ow on the hot surface. Fine droplets enhance the surface heat removal rate by producing high contact area for heat transfer. In addition, the superposed air ow sweeps the partially evaporated droplets from the hot plate, preventing lm boiling. However, if the droplets become very ne, the impingement density decreases in the presence of superposed air ow (Sec. 3.1). By contrast, the impingement density increases in the absence of superposed air ow on the hot plate but the vapor lm appears at high initial surface temperature due to the accumulation of water which hinders surface heat ux. Hence, there are two opposing factors which inuence heat ux and surface cooling. Depending on the experimental conditions, one factor dominates over the other and the cooling is affected accordingly. The transient effect of air ow rate on the surface heat ux removal rate is shown in Fig. 13. It is observed that the surface heat removal rate increases with time initially and thereafter decrease for all the cases. This is because of the onset of early transition boiling. In addition to the above, a huge difference is observed in the initial surface heat ux and the critical heat ux which directly affect the cooling rate. Here, it is seen that the air ow rate of 30 N m3/h produces ve times higher initial surface heat ux and 1.25 times larger critical heat ux than the other two cases with Fa 25 and 40 N m3/hr. The reason is that, in case of air ow rate of 30 N m3/h, superposed air ow plays an important role with moderate impingement density. On the other hand, even though the effect of superposed ow is present at an air ow rate 40 N m3/h, the impingement density of water decreases signicantly (Fig. 5, Sec. 3.1). Due to this the spray becomes dilute which might not be sufcient for rapid cooling. The same phenomenon (superposed air ow with less impingement density) was also observed by Puschmann and Specht [13]. Hence, surface heat ux 032101-6 / Vol. 136, MARCH 2014

3.4 Effect of Water and Air Flow Rate on Average Surface Heat Flux and Cooling Rate. For ultra fast cooling operation, attention has been given to the surface temperature range of 900600  C, because in low carbon steels, austenite becomes metastable at around 900  C and, at appropriate cooling rates, may transform to ferrite-pearlite in this temperature range. Moreover, in steel industries after hot rolling, the steel plate is typically cooled on the run-out table in this temperature range to control its metallurgical and mechanical properties. Hence, in the current research the average surface heat ux and the average cooling rate has been considered in this temperature range and their variation with water ow rate at different air ow rate is shown in Figs. 14 and 15, respectively. The average heat ux in the said temperature range has been calculated and shown in Fig. 14. Here, it is found that average surface heat ux increases with water ow rate for all levels of air ow rate due to the increasing impingement density. Moreover, at constant water ow rate, the average heat ux increases with the increasing air ow rate up to 30 N m3/h due to the superposed ow effect of air at moderate impingement density, and thereafter it decreases. In the current research, the maximum achieved surface heat ux of 2.7 MW/m2 is obtained at an air ow rate of 30 N m3/h and water ow rate of 16.67 105 m3/s. A correlation (Eq. (2)) has been developed for average surface heat ux with the air and water ow rate by using the Design

Fig. 14 Variation of average heat ux with water ow rate

Transactions of the ASME

Downloaded From: http://heattransfer.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 02/13/2014 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms

Fig. 15 Cooling rate versus water ow rate at different air ow rates

Expert Software version 7.0. The determination coefcient for this correlation is 0.98 which shows close tting of this correlation to the current experimental data. qs 2:58 22:8 105 Fw 0:12 Fa 792 1010 F2 W
5 0:24 F2 a 1:38 10 Fa Fw

(2)

Fig. 16 Optical micrographs of the (a) as-received plate and (b), (c), and (d) after atomized spray cooling at a cooling rate of 130  C/s, 145  C/s, and 160  C/s, respectively

The variation of average surface cooling rate with the water ow rate and air ow rate is shown in Fig. 15. The greatest change in the cooling rate at different air ow rates is observed when the water ow rate increases from 6.67 105 m3/s to 10 105 m3/s. This may be due to the two different spray characteristics at the aforesaid said water ow rates. The spray produced at water ow rate of 6.67 105 m3/s is dilute spray which might not be sufcient for fast cooling whereas after ow rate of 10 105 m3/s it becomes dense. A correlation which relates cooling rate with water ow rate (Fw) and air ow rate (Fa) is given Eq. (3). The determination coefcient (R2) of the developed correlation is 0.97. Z 55 708 105 FW 9:2 Fa 2268 1010 F2 w
5 0:153 F2 a 6 10 Fa FW

(3)

3.5 Effect of Cooling Rate on Microstructure. Metallographic samples (heat treated steel) were prepared from the spraycooled plates by following the standard polishing methods. The polished samples were etched with 2% nital solution and dried using a hot drier. The X-ray diffraction analysis was conducted with a step size of 0.02 deg (at time per step of 17 s) to examine the presence of retained austenite. The optical micrographs along with diffraction pattern are shown in Figs. 16 and 17, respectively. The optical micrograph of the as-received material shown in Fig. 16(a) conrms the ferrite- pearlite microstructure of the starting material. The microstructure of the spray-cooled samples (Figs. 16(b)16(d)) consisted of lath martensite and as expected for a low carbon steel, retained austenite was not observed in any sample. The absence of retained austenite is conrmed by the Xray diffraction patterns shown in Fig. 17 which show martensite peaks only. 3.6 Effect of Cooling Rate on Hardness and Tensile Strength. To determine the hardness of steels, a Vickers micro hardness tester with the load of 100 gf was used. Seven different indentations were made on the surfaces of steel plate and their average has been considered. Journal of Heat Transfer

Fig. 17 X-ray diffraction pattern of the steels

It can be observed from Fig. 18 that the hardness value is increasing with the increase in cooling rate, and it is expected to be associated to the renement of the martensite laths at higher cooling rates. The maximum hardness of 520 HV0.1 is achieved at cooling rate of 166  C/s. The maximum achieved hardness value is thrice that of as-received steel. Moreover, the hardness data are correlated with cooling rate and a correlation (Eq. (4)) has been developed. p H 349 22890=105 p=2 exp2C 181:3=104:62 (4) Figure 19 shows that on increasing cooling rate the tensile strength of AISI-1020 steel increases, which could be because of the renement of martensite laths. At cooling rate of 166  C/s, the MARCH 2014, Vol. 136 / 032101-7

Downloaded From: http://heattransfer.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 02/13/2014 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms

Fig. 18 Effect of cooling rate on the hardness of atomized spray cooled material

Fig. 21 Validation of measured

estimated temperatures with

the

maximum ultimate tensile strength of 960 MPa is achieved (Fig. 19). Moreover, by using regression analysis a correlation between the tensile strength of steel and cooling rate has been developed and it is given in Eq. (5). The determination coefcient (R2 0.98) shows that the correlation is in good agreement with experimental data. Y 470 expC=307 148 (5)

3.7 Comparative Study. The hardness calculated by using the correlation developed by Maynier et al. [28] and the correlation developed by current research (Eq. (5)) are shown in Fig. 20. The agreement between the two results is very good (the maximum difference is 20 HV0.1 only), considering the scatter in the hardness data which were used to develop these correlations.

4
Fig. 19 Effect of cooling rate on the tensile strength of atomized spray cooled material

Validation

The cooling rates calculated by the INTEMP software have been validated against experimental results obtained in the present work. The temperature calculated by INTEMP software at node

Fig. 20 Comparative study with previous data

032101-8 / Vol. 136, MARCH 2014

Transactions of the ASME

Downloaded From: http://heattransfer.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 02/13/2014 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms

number 1765 corresponds to the location of the thermocouple T2 has been validated by comparing with the measured thermocouple data during the experiment. The comparison (Fig. 21) shows that there is a close match (error < 5%) between the temperature estimated by INTEMP and the data measured by the thermocouple.

References
[1] C alik A., 2009, Effect of Cooling Rate on Hardness and Microstructure of AISI 1020, AISI 1040 and AISI 1060 Steels, Int. J. of Phys. Sci., 4(9), pp. 514518. Available at: http://www.academicjournals.org/article/article1380627919_Calik. pdf. [2] Miernik, K., Bogucki, R., and Pytel, S., 2010, Effect of Quenching Techniques on the Mechanical Properties of Low Carbon Structural Steel, Arch. Foundry Eng., 10, pp. 9196. Available at: http://www.afe.polsl.pl/index.php/pl/2518/ effect-of-quenching-techniques-on-the-mechanical-properties-of-low-carbonstructural-steel.pdf. [3] Liang, X., Li, J., and Peng, Y., 2008, Effect of Water Quench Process on Mechanical Properties of Cold Rolled Dual Phase Steel Microalloyed With Niobium, Mater. Lett., 62, pp. 327329. [4] Nikolopoulos, N., Theodorakakos, A., and Bergeles, G., 2007, A Numerical Investigation of the Evaporation Process of a Liquid Droplet Impinging Onto a Hot Substrate, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 50(12), pp. 303319. [5] Wendelstorf, J., Spitzer, K.-H., and Wendelstorf, R., 2008, Spray Water Cooling Heat Transfer at High Temperature and Liquid Mass Flux, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 51(1920), pp. 49024910. [6] Bin, H., Hua, L. X., Guo-Dong, W., and Guang-fu, S., 2005, Development of Cooling Process Technique in Hot Strip Mill, J. Iron Steel Res. Int., 12(1), pp. 1216. [7] Cho, M. J., Thomas, B. G., and Lee, P. J., 2008, Three Dimensional Numerical Study of Impinging Water Jet in Runout Table Cooling Processes, Metall. Mater. Trans. B, 39(4), pp. 593602. [8] Lucas, A., Simon, P., Bourdon, G., Herman, J. C., Riche, P., Neutjens, J., and Harlet, P., 2004, Metallurgical Aspect of Ultra Fast Cooling in Front of DownCoiler, J. Iron Steel Res. Int., 75, pp. 139146. [9] Cornet, X., and Herman, J. C., 2003, Methods for Making a Multiphase HotRolled Steel Strip, U.S. Patent No. 6,821,364 B2. [10] Oliveira, M. De., Ward, J., Garwood, D. R., and Wallis, R. A., 2002, Quenching of Aerospace Forgings From High Temperature Using AirAssisted Atomized Water Sprays, J. Mater. Eng. Perform., 11(1), pp. 8085. [11] Montes, R. J. J., Castillejos, E. A., Acosta, G. F. A., Guti errez, M. E. P., and Herrera, G. M. A., 2008, Effect of the Operating Conditions of Air-Mists Nozzles on the Thermal Evolution of Continuously Cast Thin Slabs, Can. Metall. Q., 47(2), pp. 187204. [12] Bhattacharya, P., Samanta, A. N., and Chakraborty, S., 2009, Spray Evaporative Cooling to Achieve Ultra Fast Cooling in Run Out Table, Int. J. Therm. Sci., 48(9), pp. 17411747. [13] Puschmann, F., and Specht, E., 2004, Transient Measurement of Heat Transfer in Metal Quenching With Atomized Sprays, Exp. Therm. Fluid Sci., 28(6), pp. 607615. [14] Al-Ahmadi, H. M., and Yao, S. C., 2008, Spray Cooling of High Temperature Metals Using High Mass Flux Industrial Nozzle, Exp. Heat Transfer, 21(1), pp. 3854. [15] Rein, M., 1993, Phenomena of Liquid Drop Impact on Solid and Liquid Surface, Fluid Dyn. Res., 12(8), pp. 6193. [16] Yarin, A. L., 2006, Drop Impact Dynamics: Splashing, Spreading, Bouncing, Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech., 38, pp. 159192. [17] Moreira, A. L. N., Moita, A. S., and Panao, M. R., 2010, Advances and Challenges Explaining Fuel Spray Impingement: How Much of Single Droplet Impact Research is Useful?, Prog. Energy Combust. Sci., 36(5), pp. 554580. [18] Mohapatra, S. S., Chakraborty, S., and Pal, S. K., 2012, Experimental Studies on Different Cooling Processes to Achieve Ultra Fast Cooling Rate for Hot Steel Plate, Int. J. Exp. Heat Transfer, 25(2), pp. 111126. [19] Negeed, E. S. R., Ishihara, N., Tagashira, K., Hidaka, S., Kohno, M., Takata, Y., 2010, Experimental Study on the Effect of Surface Conditions on Evaporation of Sprayed Liquid Droplet, Int. J. Thermal Sci., 49(12), pp. 22502271. [20] Oliveria, M. S. A., and Sousa, A. C. M., 2001, Neural Network Analysis of Experimental Data for Air/Water Spray Cooling, J. Mater. Process Technol., 113(13), pp. 439445. [21] Alam, U., Krol, J., Specht, E., and Schmidt, J., 2008, Enhancement and Local Regulation of Metal Quenching Using Atomized Sprays, J. ASTM Int., 5(10), pp. 110. [22] Sakai, T., Kito, M., Saito, M., and Kanbe, T., 1978, Characteristics of Internal Mixing Twin-Fluid Atomizer, Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Liquid Atomization and Sprays, Tokyo, pp. 235241. [23] Li, D., and Wells, M. A., 2004, Effect of Surface Thermocouple Installation on the Discrepancy of the Measured Thermal History and Predicted Surface Heat Flux During a Quench Operation, Metall. Mater. Trans. B, 36(3), pp. 343354. [24] Trujillo, D. M., and Busby, H. R., 2003, INTEMPInverse Heat Transfer Analysis-Users Manual, Trucomp Co., Fountain Valley, Canada, pp. 147. [25] Trujillo, D. M., and Busby, H. R., 1997, Practical Inverse Analysis in Engineering, CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL. [26] Busby, H. R., and Trujillo, D. M., 1985, Numerical Solution to a TwoDimensional Inverse Heat Conduction Problem, Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng., 21(2), pp. 349359. [27] Lecadia, H., Passos, J. C., and De Silva, A. F. C., 2011, Heat Transfer Behavior of a High Temperature Steel Plate Cooled by a Subcooled Impinging Circular Water Jet, 7th International Conference on Boiling Heat Transfer, May 37, Brazil. [28] Maynier, P., Jungmann, B., Dollet, J., and Creusot, L., 1978, System for the Prediction of the Mechanical Properties of Low Alloy Steel Products, Hardenability Concepts With Applications to Steel, Metall. Soc. AIME, pp. 518545.

Measurement Uncertainty

In the present case, the measured variables are temperature (inside temperature) water ow rate and air ow rate. The main sources of uncertainty in measured temperature data are temperature uctuations due to noise and uncertainty in the exact location of the thermocouples. All the measurements are taken thrice and the average of them is considered for nal calculation. From the average data, the maximum uncertainty is found to be 69%. In case of water ow rate measurement 6 0.5% uncertainty is found.

Conclusion

The ultra fast cooling of a hot steel plate by low turn down ratio nozzle has been studied. The results show that due to the superposed air ow on the hot plate the heat dissipation rate signicantly increases at high air/water ratio. As a result, the estimated cooling rate obtained for a 6 mm thick plate falls in the ultra fast cooling regime. The variation in cooling rate with air ow rate shows that the cooling rate increases gradually up to air ow rate of 30 N m3/h and thereafter it decreases. Increase in air ow rate up to a denite limit causes decrease in size of the droplets moderately so that higher evaporation takes place which causes increase in ultrafast cooling rate. At very high air ow rate, the droplets become very ne. This causes decrease in impingement density because the droplets are blown away from the surface by superposed air before it reaches the hot plate. The maximum cooling rate of 176  C/s is achieved at 30 N m3/h air ow rate and 16.67 105 m3/s of water ow rate. The hardness and tensile strength properties of AISI-1020 steel increase with cooling rate presumably due to the increasing neness of martensite lath. The maximum ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and micro hardness of the steel obtained are 980 MPa and 540 HV0.1, respectively. Hence, from the obtained cooling rate and subsequent mechanical properties, it can be concluded that air atomized spray with low turn down ratio can be used in steel industries for achieving ultra fast cooling rate on run out table (ROT) for the production of high tensile strength steel.

Nomenclature
B C Fa Fw G H Id L qs R t T TC1 TC2 TC3 X Y Y Z Z1 Z2 Z3 length of grip section (mm) width of the grip section (mm) air ow rate (N m3/h) water ow rate (m3/s) gauge length (mm) Vicker hardness (HVO) water impingement density (kg/m2 s) overall length (mm) surface heat ux (MW/m2) radius of the llet (mm) time (s) temperature ( C) temperature measured by thermocouple 1 ( C) temperature measured by thermocouple 2 ( C) temperature measured by thermocouple 3 ( C) direction along the length of the plate (mm) direction along the thickness of the plate (mm) tensile strength (MPa) cooling rate ( C/s) zone 1 (mm) zone 2 (mm) zone 3 (mm)

Journal of Heat Transfer

MARCH 2014, Vol. 136 / 032101-9

Downloaded From: http://heattransfer.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 02/13/2014 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms