Experimental Determination of Heat Transfer using a Polymer Solution Shower during Induction Hardening*

Abstract Heat treatment simulation of inductive surface hardening of large bearing rings is a challenging multi-physical task. Besides the determination of material and process parameters of induction heating, the quenching process must be modelled to obtain realistic results concerning surface hardening depth as well as information about residual stresses and distortions of the bearing rings. A common method to model quenching processes is to determine heat transfer coefficients for the specific process depending on component surface temperature. This method was used to characterize the shower cooling process using an aqueous polymer solution of a modified polyalkylene glycol (PAG) type. A specifically designed test set-up allowed to determine the heat transfer coefficients for different distances between shower and hot specimen as well as for different impingement angles of the fluid relative to gravitation. Additionally, the calculated heat transfer coefficients were checked and corrected by FEM simulations.