Application of numerical simulation of heat treatment in industry

Heat treatment and especially quenching causes distortion and sometimes cracking of a quenched part. To eliminate these undesired by-effects the whole cycle of heat treatment is simulated by FEM, which makes possible a complete metallurgical, thermal and thermoplastic calculation. The goal of this simulation is to bring the whole cycle of heat treatment to optimum - to reach the lowest level of residual stresses possible at its end and to meet the mechanical qualities required by the customer. A lot of complete numerical simulation of heat treatment were done at the Institute of Applied Mechanics (IAM) by the SYSWELD code, mainly the heat treatment of big shafts and plates for Vitkovice Company. The Vitkovice, JSC produces ship-shafts of large dimensions (diameter 2.5 m, length 10m) and other products which are forged and consequently heat treated. Heat treatment consists of quenching (in water, air and oil), and then tempering follows.The whole simulation was divided into two parts. The aim of the first part was to find correct input data for calculation..The second part consisted of heat treatment simulation with real models