An efficient fluid-dynamic analysis to improve industrial quenching systems

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of understanding the relationship between fluid flow and heat transfer in industrial quenching systems. It also presents an efficient analysis to design or optimize long standing quenching tanks to increase productivity. The study case is automotive leaf springs quenched in an oil-tank agitated with submerged jets. This analysis combined an efficient numerical prediction of the detailed isothermal flow field in the whole tank with the thermal characterization of steel probes in plant and laboratory during quenching. These measurements were used to determine the heat flow by solving the inverse heat conduction problem. Differences between laboratory and plant heat flux results were attributed to the difference in surface area size between samples. A proposed correlation between isothermal wall shear stress and heat flux at the surface of the steel component, based on the Reynolds-Colburn analogy, provided the connection between thermal characterization and computed isothermal fluid flow. The present approach allowed the identification of the potential benefits of changes in the tank design and the evaluation of operating conditions while using a much shorter computing time and storage memory than full-domain fluid flow calculations.