Carbonated aqueous media for quench heat treatment of steels

Abstract

Distilled water and polyalkylene glycol (PAG)-based aqueous quenchants of 5 and 10 vol.% with and without carbonation were prepared and used as heat transfer media during immersion quenching. Cooling curves were recorded during quenching of an inconel 600 cylindrical probe instrumented with multiple thermocouples. It was observed that the vapor stage duration was prolonged and the wetting front ascended uniformly for quenching with carbonated media. The cooling data were analyzed by determining the critical cooling parameters and by estimating the spatially dependent probe/quenchant interfacial heat flux transients. The study showed significantly reduced values of heat transfer rate for carbonated quenchants compared to quenchants without carbonation. Further, the reduction was more pronounced in the case of PAG-based carbonated quenchants than carbonated distilled water. The results also showed the dependence of heat transfer characteristics of the carbonated media on polymer concentration. The effect of quench uniformity on the microstructure of the material was assessed. © 2016, ASM International.