J Mater Sci Technol ›› 2006, Vol. 22 ›› Issue (01): 139-144.

• Research Articles • Previous Articles    

Design of Quenching Process for Large-sized AISI P20 SteelBlock Used as Plastic Die

Dongli SONG, Jianfeng GU, Jiansheng PAN, Xin YAO   

  1. Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education of High Temperature Materials and Testing, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China
  • Received:2004-10-21 Revised:2005-03-04 Online:2006-01-28 Published:2009-10-10
  • Contact: Dongli SONG

Abstract: For large-sized AISI P20 steel block used as plastic die with a thickness of more than 200~mm, appropriate quenching processes are the key to obtain much thick hardened layer. In this paper, different quenching processes of AISI P20 steel block such as oil quenching, direct water quenching, water quenching with pre-cooling and water quenching with pre-cooling and self-tempering were numerically investigated by computer simulation based on the detailed discussion on the mathematical models of quenching processes including partial differential equations of heat transfer, thermal physical properties, latent heat, heat transfer coefficient and calculation of phase transformation, The results show that the water quenching with pre-cooling and self-tempering process can not only effectively avoid quenching cracks, but also obtain deeper harden depth than oil quenching.

Key words: Computer simulation, Quenching process, AISI P20 steel, Plastic die