Analysis of heat transfer in plain carbon steels

During cooling of steels, the heat transfer was controlled by radiation, convection, conduction and heat evolution from phase transformation. To analyze the heat transfer during cooling precisely, the material constants such as density, heat capacity and the heat evolved during transformation were obtained as functions of temperature and chemical composition for each phase observed in plain carbon steel using a thermodynamic analysis based on the sublattice model of Fe-C-Mn system. The results were applied to 0.049 wt% and 0.155 wt% carbon steels with an austenitic stainless steel as reference by developing a proper heat transfer governing equation. The equation was solved using the lumped system method. In addition, using a transformation dilatometer with adequate experimental conditions to clarify the individual heat transfer effect, the transformation heat evolved during cooling and the transformation behavior as well as the temperature change were observed. The predicted temperature profiles during cooling were well agreed with the measured ones