The Effect of Hardenability Variation on Phase Transformation of Spiral Bevel Gear in Quenching Process

The hardenability of gear steel is dependent on the composition of alloying elements and is one of important criteria to assess process of phase transformation. The variation of hardenability has to be considered in control of the microstructures and distortion during gear quenching. In this paper, the quantitative effect of hardenability has been investigated on phase transformations of spiral bevel gears in die quenching. The hardenability deviation of 22CrMoH steel was assessed by using Jominy test. The dilatometry experiments were conducted to build phase transformation kinetic models for steels with low and high hardenability, respectively. The complete die quenching process of spiral bevel gear was modeled to reveal the significant difference on microstructures and temperature history with variation of hardenability. The final microstructures of the gear are martensite in surface layer after quenching process. There are bainite inside the gear tooth and the mixture of bainite and ferrite inside gear for the gear with low hardenability. The microstructure is bainite inside the gear with high hardenability.