Thermomechanical analysis of steel cylinders quenching using a constitutive model with diffusional and non-diffusional phase transformations

Quenching is a commonly used heat treatment process employed to control the mechanical properties of steels. In brief, quenching consists of raising the steel temperature above a certain critical value, called austenitizing temperature, and then rapidly cooling it in a suitable medium to room temperature. The resulting microstructures formed from quenching (ferrite, cementite, pearlite, upper bainite, lower bainite and martensite) depend on cooling rate and on steel characteristics. This article deals with the themomechanical analysis of steel cylinder quenching. A multi-phase constitutive model is employed for its modeling and simulation. Experimental analysis related to temperature evolution during the process and its resulting microstructure is used as a reference for the modeling effort. The thermomechanical coupling terms of the energy equation are included in the formulation. The through hardening of a cylindrical body is considered as an application of the proposed general formulation. Numerical simulations present good agreements with experimental data, indicating the model capability to capture the general thermomechanical behavior of the quenching process.