Transient Analysis of Thermal Treatment Processes Carburizing and Nitriding of Steel Components by Numerical Modeling and Simulation

The purpose of carburizing, nitriding and carbo-nitriding is to increase the strength of components. Elements such as carbon, nitrogen and carbon-nitride are diffused into the components at high temperature convective environment. The amount of diffusion is to be regulated by controlling the temperature and time of diffusion. Time and temperature of process govern diffusion rate and strength of the component. Numerical modeling is applied by energy balance approach i.e., equating rate of change of energy is equal to energy transferred by conduction, convection and radiation. By non dimensionalising relations for the mentioned critical parameters were obtained. The phenomenon of convection, radiation and conduction are taken together for the purpose of numerical modeling. Variation of temperature and depth of diffusion of component for the taken components i.e., sphere and cube was plotted in transient state. For both numerical analysis and simulation the boundary conditions i.e., for carburization the ambient temperature is 9500C with carbon monoxide as the carburizing agent and for nitriding the ambient temperature is 5300C with nitrogen as nitriding agent and the component taken is of steel which is initially at room temperature were taken. Results obtained from numerical modeling and simulation were compared with each other and observed that in both analyses the variation of temperature with time and depth of diffusion is almost linear. Final differential equation obtained in numerical modeling is a single order non linear differential equation which is solved in MATLAB using finite difference approach. Data obtained from MATLAB were plotted for variation of surface temperature and geometric dimension with respect to time.