Investigation of the influence of specimen geometry on quench behaviour of steels by X-ray determination of surface residual stresses

Considerable residual stresses may form during quenching due to the differential cooling and the increase in volume accompanying the phase transformations. The design of a part may be entirely responsible for the formation of residual stresses at a critical level and even cracking during quenching. Furthermore, a certain design may be perfectly safe for one type of steel, or one type cooling conditions, and unsafe for another. In this study, an experimental procedure to investigate the influence of specimen geometry on the evolution residual stresses is proposed. The cylindrical specimens with 30 mm. outer diameter were prepared from C60 and 90MnCrV8 steel bars. First, solid cylinders were quenched according to different procedures. Then, the treatment giving the minimum residual stress was applied to the hollow cylinders having various hole diameter and degree of eccentricity. By changing the position of holes in the cross-section of the specimens, a thickness gradient as a function of the eccentricity ratio was obtained. Thus, for a given transformation behaviour and quenching conditions, the effect of shape becomes more discriminating on the eccentrically drilled holes. The tangential residual stresses were determined at the specified points along the circumference of the cylinders by X-ray diffraction and d-sin(2) psi technique. The microstructures of the specimens were determined by metallographic investigation also using hardness values and respective CCT-diagrams. The results were discussed considering the microstructural evaluation of the specimens. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.