Modeling the Structure of a Reinforcing Phase at Heat Treatment of Steel Products

Resumo

The article describes a new algorithm for predicting the structure of a reinforcing phase at heat treatment of high carbon steels. This approach is based on the construction of the distribution function of grains in their size for a set of regions in which the temperature gradient is sufficiently small. The proposed algorithm makes it possible to avoid calculating formation and growth of a single embryo and to proceed to modeling the structure in a relatively large cell, which can significantly reduce computational costs. To solve the problem of determining the distribution function of temperature fields, it is proposed to use a new approach based on integral heat transfer equations; this allows, on one hand, estimating the accuracy of calculations by the mismatch vector and, on the other hand, averaging thermophysical characteristics in a natural way and solving the problem on large-scale grid splits. Owing to the nonlinearity of the task and the need to use iterative procedures, integral equations provide the necessary conditions for their convergence. As a result of creating specialized software and carrying out a series of numerical calculations, it is possible to theoretically determine the necessary conditions for heat treatment for products made from steel of a particular grade: size and power of the heating inductor, the speed of its movement, the type of coolant and its feed rate, the depth of the hardened layer, etc.; as a result, this will make it possible to determine in advance the structure of the heat-treatable layer and reduce the total costs of experimental work.