Effect of Bath Temperature on Cooling Performance of Molten Eutectic NaNO₃-KNO₃ Quench Medium for Martempering of Steels

Martempering is an industrial heat treatment process that requires a quench bath that can operate without undergoing degradation in the temperature range of 423 K to 873 K (150 °C to 600 °C). The quench bath is expected to cool the steel part from the austenizing temperature to quench bath temperature rapidly and uniformly. Molten eutectic NaNO₃-KNO₃ mixture has been widely used in industry to martemper steel parts. In the present work, the effect of quench bath temperature on the cooling performance of a molten eutectic NaNO₃-KNO₃ mixture has been studied. An Inconel ASTM D-6200 probe was heated to 1133 K (860 °C) and subsequently quenched in the quench bath maintained at different temperatures. Spatially dependent transient heat flux at the metal–quenchant interface for each bath temperature was calculated using inverse heat conduction technique. Heat transfer occurred only in two stages, namely, nucleate boiling and convective cooling. The mean peak heat flux (q _max) decreased with increase in quench bath temperature, whereas the mean surface temperature corresponding to q _max and mean surface temperature at the start of convective cooling stage increased with increase in quench bath temperature. The variation in normalized cooling parameter t ₈₅ along the length of the probe increased with increase in quench bath temperature.