Mechanical properties of tool steels submitted to hardening from different heat treatment furnaces: vacuum and inert atmosphere

• Grant number: 15/24139-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2016
• End date: April 30, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Materials and Metallurgical Engineering - Transformation Metallurgy
• Principal Investigator: Lauralice de Campos Franceschini Canale
• Grantee: Murilo Borges Masalskas
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 16/13510-5 - Mechanical properties of hot work tool steels submitted to hardening from different heat treatment furnaces: vacuum and inert atmosphere, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

In the manufacturing industry, it's trivial to use steels tools. Those alloys, called tool steels, are special alloys designed for working on other materials. The tooling industry is increasingly demanding improvement in the tools' quality, i.e., longer lifetime and lower costs of the tools. The mechanical and metallurgical tools' properties are directly related to, which, heat treatment they were submitted. Thus, excellence in heat treatment is sought.The vacuum furnaces with pressurized gas cooling is a widespread technology in heat treating for the tooling industry. Despite having advantages over the traditional process, it remains an expensive and less versatile process. It was developed in Croatia an innovative furnace with an inert gas helium atmosphere and room to attach a tank filled with any liquid cooling media. It is expected that this furnace can reduce costs and achieve better properties of tools.The interest of this study is to perform heat treatments in some H series tool steels in the two furnaces mentioned above. This way, comparing mechanical and metallurgical properties through impact tests, tensile tests, tempering resistance tests, thermal fatigue, hardness, metallography, and thus analyze the advantages and disadvantages of this innovative proposal to the tooling industry.