Effects of water jet height and end dipping on the cooling rate and hardenability in the jominy end quench test

Abstract

The effects of water jet height and end dipping on cooling rate and hardenability in the Jominy end quench test were investigated to understand the Jominy test in more detail. Experimental tests were conducted under end dipping cooling condition as well as for specific water jet heights of 35, 65, and 100 mm. The thermal behavior and mechanical properties of the Jominy specimen with region were evaluated using thermocouples and hardness measurements, respectively. The effect of the water jet height on the thermal and hardness behaviors was not large; especially, the influence of water jet height was negligible when the water jet height was over 50 mm. These observations indicate that the uncertainty of the water jet height is not important during the standard Jominy end quench test. Meanwhile, during the standard Jominy test, we cannot neglect the heat flow along the radial direction of the specimen because the temperature difference between the center and surface area was not small; the maximum temperature difference was approximately 50 °C. Based on the comparative study between the standard Jominy cooling and the end dipping cooling processes, the thermal gradient along the radial direction of the specimen can be reduced with the more stable cooling condition on the Jominy end. However, the effect of temperature deviation along the radial direction of the Jominy specimen on the hardness distribution along the longitudinal direction was not large, which shows the high reliability of the Jominy end quench test.