Experimental testing of a computer aided heat treatment planning system

by Vaidya, Rohit Subhash.

Heat treatment is an important manufacturing process, which controls the mechanical property of metal parts, therefore contributes to the product quality. A Computerized Heat Treatment (CHT) system has been developed to model and simulate the heat transfer in furnace. When the part load and thermal schedule information is given with part and furnace specifications, the temperature profiles of parts in furnace can be calculated based on heat transfer principle. Therefore the part load and thermal schedule can be optimized to remove unnecessary delay time while the quality of heat treatment is ensured. In the thesis, the functions of CHT are enhanced with the capability of modeling and simulating the heat treatment processes with random part load and continuous furnaces. Methods to model random load and continuous furnace have been developed. Case studies with industry real data have been conducted to validate the system and to show effectiveness of the system. The system development is also introduced in the thesis. ii