Optimization of carburizing and quenching process of 20MnCr5 steel gear based on numerical simulation

Aiming at the issue of significant energy consumption in the carburizing and quenching process, the process setting parameters of 20MnCr5 steel gear were enhanced under the precondition of guaranteeing the surface hardness. By conducting an analysis of the coupling among temperature, structure, and hardness, the theoretical calculation model for carburizing and quenching is established. Based on the material composition of the gear, the JMatPro software was employed to calculate the material performance parameters. Several groups of simulation experiments were designed by orthogonal experiments, and the finite element software Deform was employed to simulate the process. Based on the simulated hardness outcomes, the range analysis was conducted respectively on carburizing temperature, carburizing time, quenching temperature, tempering temperature, and tempering time, and the influence of each parameter on the surface hardness was analyzed. The results indicated that the lower the quenching temperature was, the higher the surface hardness of the gear would be. Compared with the original scheme, the ultimately selected process increased the surface hardness by 2.2HRC while reducing the production energy consumption. It can offer a reference for actual production.