Three dimensional numerical analysis of heat transfer during spray quenching of 22MnB5 steel with a single nozzle

Abstract

In this paper, a three dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics Model (CFD) model was generated for spray cooling of straight parts by using a single point nozzle. The numerical simulations of spray quenching were performed to investigate the cooling rate of a 22MnB5 hot steel blank commonly used material in the automotive industry. Experiments are carried out to examine infrared thermograph of hot steel blank surfaces during spray cooling process by using infrared thermal camera. Time dependent situations of surface temperatures, surface heat fluxes and cooling areas are investigated numerically. The 3D model with some assumptions is presented to improve the solution of numeric simulation and to meet the most appropriate acceptable results for spray cooling process. The developed 3D model will be used to investigate the heat transfer analysis of hot stamped parts during hybrid quenching to optimize the process parameters. The comparison of the numerical and experimental results showed that the presented approach can be effectively used to evaluate heat transfer during spray quenching with a single nozzle. With this research, it was clearly seen that the estimated cooling rates and the temperatures were in good agreement with the experimental cooling temperature data. By using the numerical results and experimental data obtained in this study, multi-nozzle spray apparatus which will be used to obtain different cooling rates on the parts by changing spray parameters such as spray height, spray angle, mass flow rate, the distance between nozzles and part etc. was developed for hybrid quenching process.