Cooperative research to optimize heat treating process condition by computer based technology

The three-year activities of Japanese IMS-VHT (virtual heat treatment tool for monitoring and optimising heat treatment process) project are summarized in collaboration with international VHT program. A brief introduction of the developed code and the results of a simulation of the carburized-quenching process of a cylinder, ring, and helical gear are described by using accumulated databases of material characteristics and cooling conditions. A trial to optimizing the heat treatment (HT) process by using a database system is presented based on collected data of practical cases. The goal of this project is to optimize the process, such as gas-carburizing followed by quenching into oil, and to accumulate heat treatment data to create a knowledge-based database.