Heat Treatment Simulation of a Hot Work Tool Steel Pressure Die Casting Die- An FEM Study

摘要

Nowadays the traditional steel sheet structures of passenger cars are gradually substituted with large size die cast light metals components in order to reduce the overall weight to decrease the fuel consumption and CO_2 emission accordingly. Concerning the size of the new dies to cast those components, it is a challenge for the tool industry to achieve the required microstructure of the dies after the heat treatment without causing large distortions and higher residual stresses. Modelling and simulation of thermo-mechanical-metallurgical interactions during the heat treatment is the key to predict the evolution of internal stresses and the distortions. A computationally efficient simulation tool was developed using user defined subroutines for Abaqus to simulate thermo-mechanical-metallurgical phenomena during heat treatment of steel. Using this model, the whole heat treatment including austenitization, quenching and tempering of a die cast is simulated to predict the residual stresses and distortions after each heat treatment step.