Non-destructive Testing for Surface Hardness and Case Depth

Research Team:

Lei Zhang
Mei Yang
Richard D. Sisson, Jr.
 

Introduction

The heat treating industry is in need of an accurate, rapid, nondestructive

technique to measure the surface hardness and case depth on the carburized
steels for process verification and control. Current measurement methods require
destructive testing with traveler specimens that cannot always represent the
configurations of the production part and the associated subtleties of thermal
history, carbon atmosphere, and geometry influenced diffusion experienced by
the part. Furthermore, the traveler specimen measurement method often requires
periodic production part cut-ups to validate the hardness and case depth of parts
after carburization, particularly for critical shaft and gear teeth configurations. The
preparation of traveler specimens is labor intensive, expensive, and operator
error sensitive. And the process of using traveler samples is also time consuming
and costly.

This objective of this work is to identify, develop and verify the nondestructive
techniques for surface hardness and case depth measurement of selected
carburized steel. The challenge of this project is to distinguish between hardness
and residual stress since most of the current techniques that are used to
measure the case depth are not only sensitive to the case depth that can be
determined by the hardness distribution, but also to the residual stress
distribution. The initial nondestructive techniques to be evaluated include eddy
current [1], meandering winding magnetometer (MWM) [2], Barkhausen noise
testing [3] and alternating current potential drop [4].

Methodology

The project focuses on four tasks:

Task 1: Identify the nondestructive techniques for surface hardness and case
depth measurement and develop the fundamental understanding on their
mechanisms. Select nondestructive techniques for testing based on the project
objective and equipment availability.

Task 2: Select alloys and design heat treating conditions for testing standards
using simulation method. Fabricate and characterize the standards.

Task 3: Conduct nondestructive tests to determine the correlations between the

destructive test results and the known results in the standards

Task 4: Determine the correlations among nondestructive test measurements,

hardness and microstructure for standards. Verify effectiveness of nondestructive
test technique in industry

Salient Results

A series of samples were designed and fabricated to study the signal for both
hardness and stress including AISI 1018, AISI 8620 and AISI 4140. The
microstructure and residual stress distribution are simulated using DANTE.

     
Figure 1 The modeling of the cylinder samples
For cylinders, in the near surface area, the hoop stress is approximately 250MPa,
while the axial stress is almost zero as presented in Figure 2. There is little
vibration along the length direction, while at the ends, the stress increases
suddenly.
 Axial  and  Hoop  stress  of  1018  (Mpa)  
100  
0  
-­‐100   0   1   2   3   4   5   6  
-­‐200  
-­‐300  
-­‐400  

Axial  stress   Hoop  stress  

 

Axial  and  Hoop  stress  of  8620  (Mpa)  

200  

0  
0   1   2   3   4   5   6  
-­‐200  

-­‐400  

Axial  stress   Hoop  stress  

 
Figure 2 The axial and hoop stress of 1018 and 8620

For the cylinders with 1 inch, 1.5 inch and 2 inch diameter, they are carburized
with same cycle, and obtain almost the same case depth, but different residual
stresses. The AISI 1018 alloy with 1 inch diameter has a compressive stress of
250Mpa, while the one with 2 inch diameter has a value of 320Mpa. It is similar
for AISI 8620, hoop stress has a range from 280 to 320Mpa with varying
diameters.
 Surface  hoop  stress  of  1018  (Mpa)    
0  
-­‐50   0   1   2   3   4   5   6  

-­‐100  
-­‐150  
-­‐200  
-­‐250  
-­‐300  
-­‐350  

d=1.5   d=2   d=1  

 

Surface  hoop  stress  of  8620  (Mpa)    

0  
0   1   2   3   4   5   6  
-­‐50  
-­‐100  
-­‐150  
-­‐200  
-­‐250  
-­‐300  
-­‐350  

d=1.5   d=2   d=1  

 
Figure 3 The surface hoop stress of samples with different diameters
   
Reference  

[1]  Loutfallah  Georges  Chedid,  Makhlouf  M.  Markhlouf,  Richard  D.  Sisson,  Jr.  Real-­‐time  
carbon   sensor   for   measuring   concentration   profiles   in   carburized   steel,   US   patent  
7068054B2  

[2]   M.   Dubois   and   M.   Fiset,   Evaluation   of   case   depth   on   steels   by   Barkhausen   noise  
measurement,  Materials  Science  and  Technology,  1995,  Vol.11  p264-­‐268  

[3]   Neil   Goldfme,   David   Clark,   MWM   Introduction   to   the   Meandering   Winding  
Magnetometer  (MWM)  and  the  Grid  Measurement,  SPIE  Vol.  2944/  187  

[4]   John   R   Bowler,   Yongqiang   Huang,   Haiyan   Sun,   Jonathan   Brown   and   Nicola   Bowler,  
Alternating  current  potential-­‐drop  measurement  of  the  depth  of  case  hardening  in  steel  
rods.  Meas.  Sci.  Technol.  19  (2008)  075204  (8pp)