Title: A finite element model for carburisation of surface densified PM components

Authors: Sven Eck; Anton Ishmurzin; Thomas Wlanis; Reinhold Ebner; Florian Planitzer; Thomas Hatzenbichler

Addresses: Materials Centre Leoben Forschung GmbH, Roseggerstrasse 12, A-8700 Leoben, Austria. ' Materials Centre Leoben Forschung GmbH, Roseggerstrasse 12, A-8700 Leoben, Austria. ' Materials Centre Leoben Forschung GmbH, Roseggerstrasse 12, A-8700 Leoben, Austria. ' Materials Centre Leoben Forschung GmbH, Roseggerstrasse 12, A-8700 Leoben, Austria. ' Montanuniversität Leoben, Franz-Josef-Straße 18, A-8700 Leoben, Austria. ' Montanuniversität Leoben, Franz-Josef-Straße 18, A-8700 Leoben, Austria

Abstract: The primary purpose of case hardening is to provide a hard, wear and fatigue resistant surface while maintaining a soft ductile core. PM structural parts play an increasing role in the automotive industry, especially for complex shaped parts like gears. In recent years, several studies have been published concerning surface densification of PM transmission gears containing both experimental studies and finite element-based numerical investigations of the densification process. Furthermore, a series of papers has recently been published dealing with the finite element (FE)-based simulation of the heat treatment of a PM part. The focus was on the influence of the porosity on the solid-solid phase transformation during the heat treatment. Case hardening of surface densified PM structural parts, however, has not been considered so far. The subject of the work presented here was to study the influence of the local density of a surface densified gear on the carburisation process.

Keywords: carburisation; porous materials; powder metallurgy; PM components; surface densification; finite element method; FEM; modelling; hard surfaces; soft ductile core; automotive parts; automobile industry; transmission gears; heat treatment; case hardening.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCMSSE.2012.049051

International Journal of Computational Materials Science and Surface Engineering, 2012 Vol.5 No.1, pp.16 - 30

Received: 06 Jul 2011
Accepted: 28 Oct 2011
Published online: 23 Aug 2014 *

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