Application of Abaqus Software for the Modeling of Surface Progressive Hardening

The article concerns numerical modelling of phase transformations in solid state during hardening of steel. Abaqus FEA software is used for numerical analysis of temperature field and phase transformations in analyzed process. Additional author's numerical subroutines, written in FORTRAN programming language are used in computer simulations where models of the distribution of movable heat source, kinetics of phase transformations in solid state as well as thermal and structural strain are implemented. Thermomechanical properties of hardened material changing with temperature are taken into account in the analysis. Structural transformations are considered as: base structure -austenite, austenite - pearlite, bainite and austenite - martensite. Model for evaluation of fractions of phases and their kinetics is based on continuous heating diagram (CHT) and continuous cooling diagram (CCT). Estimation of phase fractions in hardened element is performed in presented numerical example. Computer simulations allow the determination of the temperature field and the analysis of stress and strain states in hardened element.