Journal of ASTM International, Vol. 6, No. 7 Paper ID JAI102021 Available online at www.astm.

org

Satyam S. Sahay,1 Goutam Mohapatra,2 and George E. Totten3

Overview of Pearlitic Rail Steel: Accelerated Cooling, Quenching, Microstructure, and Mechanical Properties
ABSTRACT: Railway networks form an integral part of the infrastructure development of a developing country with ever-increasing passenger and freight volume. Increase in train speed, pay load, reliability, and safety are the major thrust areas for railways requiring more stringent mechanical properties such as wear, deformation resistance, and fatigue life from the railway steel. Steel chemistry control and thermomechanical processing signicantly affect nal properties and performance of the railway steel. For example, for a given steel composition, a number of stable or metastable microstructures can be obtained by controlling heat treatment operations. Conventional rail steels primarily contain nearly eutectoid pearlitic microstructure, which is dependent on the criticality of the application. An overview of the physical metallurgy principles involved during the manufacturing of rail steel will be provided here. The primary focus of this review is thermal processing including quenching and accelerated cooling of the rail steel. In addition, other important aspects relating to design and production of rail steel are discussed, including: impact of steel chemistry on the phase diagram, effect of thermomechanical processing on microstructure, and inuence of microstructure or residual stress on mechanical properties. KEYWORDS: accelerated cooling, rail steel, pearlitic steel, quenching, cooling curves, microstructure, residual stress, mechanical properties

Introduction For over 150 years, railway infrastructure has continued to be one of the important backbones for passenger as well as freight transportation around the globe. Increases in train speed, pay load, reliability, and safety are the major thrust areas for railways, which necessitates stringent mechanical and functional properties such as wear and deformation resistance, fatigue life from the railway steel. These everincreasing performance targets have been successfully met by the manufacturers of rail steel. Interestingly, rail steel provides a classical case for teaching physical metallurgy principles. This includes a clear understanding of steel chemistry dependence on transformation temperatures, inuence of thermomechanical processing on microstructure, and direct bearing of microstructure features such as pearlite lamellae spacing on mechanical properties as well as functional performance parameters. More often than not, for successful commercial production of rail steel, metallurgists have worked backward in the above process chain, i.e., based on functional and mechanical property requirements and microstructure specications. Practical constraints of cooling rates and available time for conducting the required thermomechanical processing have necessitated the design of a transformation diagram by tuning the alloy chemistry. A review of the physical metallurgy principles involved during the manufacturing of rail steel is provided here. The primary focus is on thermal processing including quenching and accelerated cooling of the rail steel. In addition, other important aspects for the design and production of rail steel are discussed including: impact of steel chemistry on the phase diagram, effect of thermomechanical processing on microstructure, and inuence of microstructure or residual stress on mechanical properties. Although all three common grades of rail steelpearlitic, ferritic, and bainitic steelsare used for railway applications including track and wheels, this review will primarily be limited to pearlitic steel for railway track. Recent
Manuscript received July 15, 2008; accepted for publication May 11, 2009; published online June 2009. 1 Tata Research Development and Design Centre, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., 54, Hadapsar Industrial Estate, Pune 411 013, India, e-mail: satyamsahay@yahoo.com 2 Tata Research Development and Design Centre, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., 54, Hadapsar Industrial Estate, Pune 411 013, India. 3 Dept. of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Portland State Univ., Portland, OR 97201, e-mail: getotten@aol.com
Copyright 2009 by ASTM International, 100 Barr Harbor Drive, PO Box C700, West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2959.

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FIG. 1Effect of cooling prole on the nal microstructure (adapted from Ref [2]). developments of bainitic rail steels with excellent mechanical properties and wear resistance 1,2 will be discussed in a subsequent review. Chemistry and Phase Diagrams Continuous cooling transformation diagrams are very important in designing the required thermomechanical processes of steel. This can be illustrated using a transformation diagram Fig. 1 for the eutectoid steel 3 . In this gure, the pearlite, bainite, and martensite start Ps, Bs, Ms and end Pf, Bf, Mf temperatures are marked. By superimposing the cooling pathways on this transformation diagram, the phases expected from the transformation can be identied. For example, at very slow cooling rates path A , full pearlitic microstructure is expected. As the cooling rate is increased path C , the cooling path crosses pearlitic and bainitic transformation boundaries yielding a mixed microstructure. If a very fast cooling path is undertaken path D , it is possible to completely avoid the pearlitic and bainitic transformation boundaries, leading to martensitic structure. It must be noted that from the rail steel perspective, none of these three paths are highly desirable. Cooling path A leads to coarse pearlitic structure with low hardness and wear resistance, path C leads to highly undesirable mixed pearlitic and bainitic microstructure having low wear resistance, and path D leads to brittle martensitic structure. The highly desired ne pearlitic microstructure associated with excellent hardness, wear resistance, and fatigue properties can be obtained by following cooling path B where the component is rapidly cooled to a lower pearlitic start temperature that is located just above the bainitic start temperature and a nearly constant thermal transformation is conducted up to the pearlite nish boundary, which is followed by the cooling to ambient temperature. Cooling path B is commonly referred to as interrupted cooling or accelerated cooling and is used extensively for rail steel processing. In practice, the constant temperature pearlitic transformation can be achieved simply by cooling rapidly by airwater mist spray to the pearlitic start temperature and then applying high cooling rates in small zones followed by slow air-cooling regimes. The slow air-cooling regimes prevent material from crossing the bainitic boundary. The cooling process and the heat of transformation recalescence effect produce a nearly uniform constant temperature prole throughout the cross section of the rail. As explained above, for a given material, the desired microstructure can be obtained by controlling the cooling rates. However, it is possible that the required cooling rate for a given component is too high to be achieved in practice. Alternately, if the component cross section is very large, the core of the component may cool at the desired rate. In either of these situations, it is possible to shift the phase boundary by alloy addition. This has been illustrated by comparing the transformation diagram of two rail steels with minor

SAHAY ET AL. ON OVERVIEW OF PEARLITIC RAIL STEEL 3

TABLE 1The trace elements in the two rail steels. Mn 0.81 1.14 Ni 0.015 0.09 Cr 0.02 0.21 Mo 0.02 0.021 V 0.02 0.02 Al 0.003 0.007 Sn 0.002 0.02 Sb 0.0008 0.005 As 0.006 0.009 Cu 0.033 0.26

Alloy A Alloy B

differences in their chemistry. The two steels considered in this example contain equal C 0.76, Si 0.25, P 0.017, and S 0.014 content but minor differences in other trace elements as shown in Table 1 3 . Except for Mn content, the difference in the other trace elements is very low. In spite of such minor differences, the continuous cooling transformation diagram given in Fig. 2 shows signicant differences for the two alloys. The pearlite and bainite phase boundary for alloy B with higher trace element content has considerably shifted toward higher time relative to alloy A. A cooling rate of 350 C / min will result in coarse pearlite phase for the alloy A, whereas it barely touches the bainite start boundary, resulting in primarily martensitic microstructure 3 . This example illustrates the importance of tight chemistry control during rail steel processing. Fortunately, during the last few decades, signicant advances in secondary steelmaking and casting have resulted in very clean steels. Some of the commonly used pearlitic and bainitic steels have been tabulated in Table 2 2 . Both silicon and manganese are well-known solid solution strengtheners of ferrite 4 . Manganese reduces both the interlamellar spacing of pearlite and the prior austenite grain size, both of which can be benecial to strength and toughness. Silicon addition of 0.20 % increased the yield strength YS about 10 %.

FIG. 2Effect of steel grades on phase transformation during continuous cooling (adapted from Ref [2]).
TABLE 2Compositions of some of the typical pearlitic and bainitic rail steels [2]. Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 C 0.55 0.8 0.7 0.75 0.65 0.04 0.09 0.07 0.1 0.3 0.3 0.52 Si 0.25 0.3 1.9 0.7 0.25 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.2 1.0 0.25 Mn 1.0 1.0 1.5 1.0 0.7 0.75 1.0 4.5 0.6 2.0 0.7 0.35 Ni Mo Cr V Nb B Al Ti Type Pearlitic Pearlitic Pearlitic Pearlitic Pearlitic Bainitic Bainitic Bainitic Bainitic Bainitic Bainitic Bainitic

1.0 2.0 0.25 0.5 0.5 0.6 0.5 0.2 0.25 2.8

0.1 0.01 0.003 0.1 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03

4.0

1.5

1.7 1.0 2.7 1.7

0.01 0.003
0.1 0.1

0.01

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TABLE 3Inuence of cooling rate on the microstructure of rail steel [3]. Cooling rate 240 C / min 250 C / min 400 C / min 643 C / min Interrupted cooling Phases Pearlite Pearlite+ bainite Pearlite+ bainite+ martensite Martensite Fine pearlite

Manganese addition of 0.35 % increased strength by about 67 % 4 . The addition of a small amount of niobium to rail steel considerably improves the wear resistance, weldability, ductility, and fracture toughness 4,5 . Ductility and fracture toughness are important when the steel is to be used in cold environments with heavy-haul iron ore service. The role of niobium in head-hardened rail steel is to rene the prior austenite grain size and prevent grain growth ensuring the formation of ne pearlite colonies 4,5 . An addition of about 0.08 % by weight vanadium increases the YS to approximately 20 % over nonvanadium alloys of the same composition. Vanadium contributed to the strength in these alloys primarily by solid solution strengthening and also, to some extent, by grain renement. The addition of vanadium also produces the undesirable effect of increasing the Charpy transition temperature. This is due to an undesirable rolling texture veried by x-ray diffraction. Chromium addition to grade 1100 steel shifts the continuous cooling transformation curve to the right and, as a result, even still-air cooling after hot-rolling results in 100 % pearlitic structure 4,5 . Hydrogen has a deleterious inuence such as aking or shatter cracks on rail steel if present above 3 ppm 6 . One way to control hydrogen content in the liquid steel is by adopting advanced secondary steel making e.g., arc argon oxygen decarburization to reduce the hydrogen content to an acceptable limit below 3 ppm . The high wear resistance THS 11 grade rail steel developed by Thyssen Mill, Germany contains around 3 ppm of oxygen by adopting a vacuum degassing technique 7 . Another way to control the hydrogen content is by slow or retarded cooling, since slow cooling gives enough time for hydrogen to diffuse out of the steel. It was also observed that the response of critical amounts of hydrogen to form akes depends upon alloy content, for example, increase in sensitivity to hydrogen increases with an increasing manganese-carbon ratio 7 . Higher sulfur contents reduce susceptibility to the formation of akes. A chromium-manganese special grade is less sensitive to hydrogen aking. The nonmetallic inclusion content also depends upon oxygen content in the steel. Vacuum degassing is used to reduce the oxygen content to 0.0020.008 %. The percentage of sulfur prints with inclusions reduced from 26 to 1 between 1978 and 1986 8 . Quenching Heat Transfer Quenching plays an important role in the thermomechanical processing of steel, which can be illustrated by the following example. Consider a typical CMn rail steel containing 0.77 % C, 0.95 % Mn, 0.22 % Si, and 0.1 % Cr. The required cooling rates under continuous cooling condition for this steel to obtain various types of microstructures are shown in Table 3. In contrast, to obtain the desired ne pearlitic microstructure, an interrupted cooling prole is required where the steel is cooled from 1050 to 580 C at the rate of 640 C / min, followed by slow cooling at 45 C / min to 480 C, before giving moderate cooling at the rate of 380 C / min to room temperature 3 . There are three primary heat transfer cooling mechanisms, most commonly observed during conventional immersion quenching in a vaporizable quenchant such as water. When water rst contacts the hot metal surface, it is surrounded by a vapor lm where heat transfer occurs by full-lm boiling FB . When the temperature decreases to the Leidenfrost temperature, the vapor lm collapses and surface wetting by the liquid occurs by a nucleate boiling NB process 9 . When the surface temperature decreases further to a temperature less than the boiling point, NB ceases and convective cooling CONV begins. Each of these cooling mechanisms is associated with different heat transfer processes as illustrated in Fig. 3 10 . This is important because of the signicantly different heat transfer coefcients HTCs

SAHAY ET AL. ON OVERVIEW OF PEARLITIC RAIL STEEL 5

FIG. 3Illustration of cooling curve and the different cooling mechanisms occurring from the time of initial immersion until the conclusion of the quench. corresponding to these cooling processes. For example, when water is used to quench steel, typical HTCs are FB FB 100 250 W / m2 K , NB NB 10 20 kW/ m2 K , and CONV CONV ca. 700 W / m2 K . The simultaneous presence and relative stability of these widely varying heat transfer conditions are an important factor inuencing nonuniform cooling and increased stresses during a water quenching process 11,12 . The total amount of heat transferred to the quenchant heat transfer is denoted by the symbol Q . When heat is released from the hot body to the cooler surroundings, Q is negative. The heat ow per unit time heat transfer rate is measured in watts and is quantitatively dened as dQ Q= dt 1

Heat ux is dened as the heat transfer rate per unit of cross-sectional area q is measured as watts per square meter and is determined experimentally by measuring the temperature difference over a material with a known thermal conductivity. However, measured cooling rates are dependent on the size, shape, and thermal properties of the steel. A common method of quantifying the cooling properties of a quenchant that is to calculate the HTC is

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TABLE 4Equations for calculation of Kondratyev shape factor K for simple shapes. Shape of Body Parallelepiped with sides L1, L2, L3 Cylinder of innite size with height Z Sphere

K L2 + L2 + L2 / 2 1 2 3 5.783R2 + 9.87Z2 R2 / 2

S/V 2 L1 + L1 + L1 1 2 3 2 R1 + Z1 3/R

dQ = dt

Tp Tc A

where: = HTC, T P = surface temperature of the steel, TC = temperature of the quenchant, A = surface area, and dQ / dT = heat ux amount of heat transferred . The HTC relates to quenching and cooling and is classically related to the Grossman value H , which is equal to the HTC divided by two times the thermal conductivity H = / 2 . When the H-value is multiplied by the diameter of the body D , the product corresponds to the dimensionless Biot number Bi , which relates to the resistance to heat transfer both at the surface and inside of a body HD = Bi = R 3

The physical signicance of the Biot number can be understood by considering the heat ow from a hot metal to the quenchant during the cooling process. The factors inhibiting heat ow are: a heat ow from the metal to the surface and b heat ow from the surface into the quenchant. This equation means that heat transfer is proportional to section size thickness of the metal being quenched and that the HTC at the interface between the cooling metal and the quenchant is inversely proportional to the thermal conductivity of the metal. To more accurately relate the Biot number to size and shape, the generalized Biot criterion, BiV is calculated from BiV = V L= V K S V 4

where: L = characteristic length, which is commonly dened as the surface area of the body S divided by the volume of the body V and K = Kondratyev form coefcient shape factor . A limited number of these values is provided in Table 4 13 . The generalized Biot criterion BiV is related to the temperature difference within the steel and the cooling metal surface to the quenchant by the dimensionless Kondratyev number Kn . There is universal correlation between Kn and generalized Biot number BiV and it is useful for any conguration of steel part. The Kondratyev number may be calculated as follows or it may be obtained from Table 5 14 : Kn = BiV =
2 BiV

BiV + 1.437BiV + 1

1/2

is the temperature eld nonuniformity criterion, which is equal to = Tsf Tm T T

V m

where: Tsf = average temperature of the surface of the component being quenched, Tm = temperature of the quenchant, and TV = average temperature over the volume of the component. The value can also be dened in terms of the generalized Biot criterion BiV

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TABLE 5Summary of generalized Biot numbers, values, and Kondratyev numbers.

BiV 0.00 0.01 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 4.00 4.50 5.00 6.00 7.00 9.00 10.00 20.00 50.00 100.00

1.000 0.993 0.931 0.868 0.811 0.759 0.713 0.671 0.633 0.599 0.568 0.539 0.430 0.386 0.304 0.264 0.210 0.190 0.174 0.148 0.129 0.1026 0.0931 0.0482 0.0197 0.0099 0.0000

Kn 0.000 0.010 0.093 0.174 0.243 0.304 0.356 0.403 0.443 0.479 0.511 0.539 0.646 0.712 0.760 0.792 0.839 0.854 0.869 0.889 0.903 0.929 0.951 0.965 0.986 0.993 1.000

f BiV 1.000 0.005 0.040 0.070 0.092 0.11 0.124 0.135 0.146 0.154 0.160 0.170 0.190 0.210 0.213 0.220 0.230 0.231 0.233 0.236 0.240 0.240 0.240 0.240 0.240 0.240 0.240

1/ 1.000 1.010 1.074 1.152 1.23 1.32 1.40 1.49 1.58 1.67 1.76 1.85 2.32 2.81 3.29 3.79 4.76 5.26 5.75 6.76 7.75 9.75 10.74 20.75 50.76 100.30

1/

BiV 1.00 1.00 0.97 0.95 0.93 0.92 0.90 0.89 0.88 0.87 0.86 0.85 0.82 0.81 0.79 0.76 0.76 0.76 0.76 0.76 0.75 0.75 0.74 0.75 0.76 0.76

2 BiV

1 2 + 1.437BiV + 1

1/2

Kobasko et al. 14 and later Fernandes and Prabhu 15 used these relationships to calculate the HTC from the two temperatures T1 and T2 corresponding to the times t1 and t2 taken from the quenchant cooling rate curve. The cooling rate m is then calculated from m= ln T1 Tm ln T2 Tm t2 t1 8

The Kondratyev number Kn is calculated from the cooling rate m Kn = m K 9

FB

For a cylindrical body, the Kondratyev form factor K is R2 / 5.783. The HTC for lm boiling calculated from
FB =

is

BiV V KA

10

In addition to simplied methods for the calculation of HTC such as those described here, one may also use inverse analysis such as that described by Beck 16 . This methodology is commonly performed on cooling curve data 17 and has a number of advantages over those methods described above since surface heat ux can be calculated from known positions of the heated problem. However, these methods have been described by others and will not be discussed further here 18 .

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TABLE 6Comparison of typical heat transfer rates [19]. Heat Transfer W / m2 5080 100150 350500 400500 550600 9001000 10001500 12501350 18002200 21002300 30003500

Quench Medium Still air Nitrogen 1 bar Salt bath or uidized bed Nitrogen 10 bar Helium 10 bar Helium 20 bar Still oil Hydrogen 20 bar Circulated oil Hydrogen 40 bar Circulated water

Quenchants A variety of uids, including air, mist, water, oil, and gases have been used as quenchants. The effectiveness of various quenching media can be compared through their heat transfer rates. As can be seen from Table 6, still air provides a very low heat transfer rate of 50 80 W / m2 compared to 3000 3500 W / m2 for circulated water 19 . Heat transfer rates for various gases are shown in Fig. 4. The HTC, a measure of effectiveness of the cooling media, is determined from the experimentally measured cooling proles. For example, the HTC calculated from cooling curves using nite element modeling is shown in Fig. 5 20 . In addition to the quenchant type, the cooling rates achieved by the metal also depend on the operating parameters, such as bath circulation or temperature. For example, it can be seen from Fig. 6, that minor changes in bath agitation can signicantly modify the cooling prole of the metal through mixing of the uid as well as inuencing the convective heat transfer 19 . Similarly, Fig. 7 shows that signicant changes in cooling rates can be achieved by changing the bath temperature 19 . Increasing the bath temperature reduces the cooling capacity of the quenchant. Scale on the mill products can also signicantly affect the cooling proles in the metal. The inuence of scale thickness on the central cooling proles during oil quenching is illustrated in Fig. 8 19 . It must be noted that scale in the mill product is not desired since it reduces the yield of the material. In actual practice, scale thickness is controlled by tightly controlling the air-fuel ratio, temperature, and mill delays in the reheating operation 21 . It must be noted in Fig. 8, that a very thick nonadherent scale reduces the cooling rate due to trapped air gap whereas very thin adherent scale can enhance the cooling rate due to increased surface roughness. Measurement of surface temperature is also important since it is often used as one of the boundary conditions in mathematical models to estimate the core temperature 21 .

FIG. 4Comparison of HTCs achieved with different gas quenching media (adapted from Ref [19]).

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FIG. 5The HTC as a function surface temperature for the head (dotted line) and ange (dashed line) obtained by employing inverse analysis (adapted from Ref [20]). Different quenching media are used in the heat treatment of rail steel. Traditionally, air, water, oil, or mixtures such as air and water mist are also used as quenchants. Although water provides the highest cooling rate, it is not suitable for all types of steels. Mist quenching or fog quenching is often used in rail steel production and involves rapid heat extraction from a metal by a fast-moving stream of gas, usually air, that contains water droplets. The cooling capacity of the fog is due to the absorption of heat by the gas and the heat of vaporization of the water. The addition of water droplets fog to an air stream can signicantly increase its cooling capacity 22 . For comparison, forced air convection exhibits a maximum heat ux between 2 3 W / cm2 whereas an airwater mist, depending on the mass ux and atmospheric conditions, is capable of exhibiting a maximum heat ux of 100 1200 W / cm2 23 . Mist fog quenching is performed using with a mixed spray jet s gas typically air and a liquid typically water . The diameter of the water droplet in the mixed spray jet may vary from approximately 10 400 m 2427 . The mixing ratio of the gas and liquid may be either constant, as in conventional fog quenching, or it may be varied from pure air to pure water, as required, throughout the cooling process. In conventional fog quenching, the cooling capacity is regulated by the distance between the spray nozzle

FIG. 6Effect of bath agitation on the cooling rate (adapted from Ref [19]).

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FIG. 7Effect of bath temperature on the cooling rate (adapted from Ref [19]). and the object to be quenched 28 . The spray jet that is used to control the injection of the liquid into the gas may utilize a hydraulic or a pneumatic atomizer. A pneumatic atomizer is reported to provide smaller droplet sizes with a more uniform distribution 27 . Heat transfer of the mist is dependent on the Leidenfrost temperature TL . If the surface temperature of the steel is greater than TL during the mist cooling process, the surface of the steel will be covered by a vapor blanket of water vapor 28 . And if the surface temperature of the steel is less than TL, the vapor blanket will have collapsed and the surface will be wetted by the water droplets with a corresponding increase in heat transfer. The Leidenfrost temperature is related to the spray orice, ow rate, physical and chemical properties of the liquid, spray pressure, and momentum of the liquid droplets. Droplet momentum may be increased by increasing the liquid droplet size or increasing the impact velocity. The composition of the spray has a signicant effect on the droplet size and droplet speed and therefore droplet kinetic energy during heat transfer. The ability of a spray droplet to come into contact with the surface is dependent on the vapor layer that is formed. Direct contact produces higher heat transfer rates. The kinetic energy of the droplet is quantied by the Weber number, which is a dimensionless number used to analyze multiphase uid ows such as spray droplets of water in air. It is a measure

FIG. 8Effect of scale thickness on the cooling rate (adapted from Ref [19]).

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FIG. 9Wetting process of a cylindrical CrNi-steel specimen 25-mm diameter from 850 C into distilled water at 30 C with an agitation rate of 0.3 m/s.

100 mm quenched

of the relative importance inertia of the uid relative to its surface tension. The Weber number is useful in modeling droplet contact heat transfer and is the governing parameter for contacting droplet deformation. The Weber number We is calculated from 27 We = v 2l 11

where: = fluid mist density kg/ m3 , v = velocity of the droplet m/s , d = diameter of the droplet m , and = surface tension of the uid dyne/cm . A low Weber number can be increased most easily in practice by increasing the droplet velocity. In some cases, a critical Weber number is reported, which is dened as the lowest value sufcient to complete the breakup of liquid droplets in a high speed gas stream. When designing a quenching process, it is often desirable to maximize the time that the surface temperature is greater than the Leidenfrost temperature to minimize the cooling rate to allow the steel to become sufciently rigid to resist plastic deformation, which may lead to increased distortion. When water alone is used as a quenching medium for low-carbon steel, it results in strain development and distortion or crack formation. Sometimes a mixture of water and air mist is used as a quenching medium 29 . A recently developed quenching technology using compressed air single step or compressed air followed by mist two step instead of only mist mixture of water and air developed by Zhan and Wang 30 ensures a very stable cooling speed, which remains unaffected by surface condition, and thus ensures stable properties of the rail. Another alternative to using water as a quenchant is the use of an aqueous polymer solution. Typically, when the hot steel is initially immersed into the quenching uid, a vapor lm surrounds the hot metal surface, resulting in lm boiling. As the surface temperature decreases, NB begins and continues until the surface temperature is less than the boiling point of the quenching uid, at which point CONV begins. The non-steady-state behavior obtained when hot metal is quenched into water and oil, is shown in Figs. 9 and 10, respectively, where it is observed that all three cooling mechanisms occur on the surface simultaneously. This is signicant because the HTCs for these cooling processes vary by an order of magnitude or greater , thus producing substantial thermal gradients during the cooling process that lead to increased residual stresses 9 . Because of the different wetting phases on the metal surface and the enormous differences in the values of FB, NB, and CONV , the time-dependent temperature distribution within the metal specimen

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FIG. 10Wetting process of a cylindrical CrNi-steel specimen 25-mm diameter from 860 C into petroleum oil at 60 C without agitation.

100 mm quenched

will also be inuenced by the velocity and geometry of the wetting front as well as the geometry of the quenched part. One way to minimize the magnitude and effect of these thermal gradients is to use agitation. Ju et al. 31 have shown that agitation facilitates lm breakage and decreases the thickness of the insulating steam lm during lm boiling. A quenchant patented by Blackwood and Cheeseman 32 comprises a mixture of water and polyalkylene glycol PAG 219 parts; remainder is water . The PAG ensures more uniform heat transfer and thus reduces the internal stress and subsequent distortion of the work piece. Many aqueous polymer solutions, such as the 10 % solution of the PAG quenchant used for this work, exhibit a pseudo-Newtonian cooling process. This means that the cooling mechanism is essentially the same all over the surface of the cooling part at any point in time. This is illustrated in Fig. 11 19 . In this case, the hot metal surface is covered by a uniform polymer lm assuming uniform agitation separated from the hot metal by a vapor lm barrier. As the specimen is cooled, the polymer lm explosively ruptures and rapid cooling results by NB. When the NB process ends, the polymer is redissolved into the solution and the part is cooled by convec-

FIG. 11Wetting process of a cylindrical silver specimen 12.55-mm diameter 45 mm quenched from 850 C into a 10 % aqueous solution of a PAG solution at 25 C without agitation (an agitated specimen would exhibit substantially more uniform lm formation).

SAHAY ET AL. ON OVERVIEW OF PEARLITIC RAIL STEEL 13

FIG. 12Cooling curves received for different positions within an instrumented cylindrical probe: (a) The solid line is for water and (b) the dashed line is for a 5 % aqueous solution of a polyalkylene glycol polymer quenchant. tion. It is important to note that quenching into an aqueous polymer quenchant solution results in a fundamentally different and more uniform cooling process than when quenching into either water or oil. The effect of non-Newtonian versus Newtonian wetting on thermal gradients and residual stress formation was described by Tensi et al. 33 and Narazaki et al. 34 . The inuence of the non-Newtonian wetting process on the temperature distribution within the quenched specimen is shown in Fig. 12, where the temperature measured near the surface of a submerged cylindrical specimen at different locations from the lower end is shown for water and polymer aqueous solution. If there were an explosionlike wetting of the specimen, such as would occur in a Newtonian wetting process typically exhibited by a PAG polymer quenchant, the different cooling curves shown in Fig. 12 would be essentially equivalent. If the temperatures were measured in the center of the specimen, the differences in the thermal gradients exhibited by these two different cooling wetting processes would not be evident 33 . Polyacrylate quenching media for rail steel applications have been reported by Kopietz and Munjat 35 and by Tokuue and Kato 36 who reported the use of aqueous solutions containing 0.410 % of salts sodium, potassium, or ammonium of polyacrylic acid, polymethacrylic acid, and copolymers of methacrylic acid and acrylic acid with an intrinsic viscosity of 0.010.05 l/g 32 . These ionic polymers are thermally stable, corrosion resistant, and easily waste disposable. The water-soluble polymer typically coats the hot metal forming an insulating lm around the workpiece, which reduces heat transfer rates and the extended lm boiling vapor-blanket cooling favors the formation of pearlite at the expense of typically undesirable martensite during quenching. In addition, soft spotting and excessive distortion control and cracking problems are reduced relative to water and oil quenching. Nakamura et al. 37 showed that contamination leads to nonuniformity of surface heat transfer. Examples of contamination effects leading to quench nonuniformity included water contamination of quench oil, presence of sludge, and nonuniform lm deposition when aqueous polymer quenchants are used. Spray Quenching Lenard 38 has extensively characterized the effect of nozzle type, geometry, and strength of spray on the cooling rates of the rail by embedded thermocouple experiments. The cyclic nature of accelerated cooling of the rail prole was simulated under laboratory conditions. Strength of the spray was found to have the most signicant effect on the cooling rates. In this experiment, an initial cooling rate of as high as 148 C / s from 925 C was observed for nozzles with 65 angles, 0.43-m/s velocity located at 63.5 mm from the rail. In another paper, Stewart et al. 39 have discussed the effectiveness of various hydraulic

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FIG. 13The time to reach 300 C at a point 4 mm below the surface of steel plate from a start temperature of 500 C (adapted from Ref [39]). nozzles, such as hollow cone conical shaped water jet only in outer shell of cone , full cone solid-conical shaped water jet , at spray solid rectangular shaped water jet , and solid stream on heat removal from hot metal. The reduced effectiveness of cooling due to contaminated water, e.g., inadvertent mixing of lubricants, has been discussed. The possibility of limitation of the cooling rate due to conduction of heat from the core to the surface and the resulting ineffectiveness of an increase in spray power was illustrated. As can be seen in Fig. 13, when the HTC is increased by increasing the spray power, in the initial stage a minor increase in the HTC signicantly reduces the cooling time 39 . However, when the HTC is increased beyond 12 kW/ m2 K, there is a minor reduction in cooling time. At initial stages, when the HTC is low the cooling of components is limited by removal of heat from the surface whereas at the later stage cooling gets limited by the conduction of heat from the core to the surface. The cooling proles under various cooling rates for the rail steel have been modeled 40 by nite element method for the cooling rates of 6 15 C / s. The temperature rise due to recalesence heat released during phase transformation has been simulated and temperature proles at various locations have been predicted. A parametric study on the effect of nozzle width, discharge velocity, and cooling water temperature was carried out on the accelerated cooling of steel strip 41 . Nozzle width was found to have the most signicant inuence on the thermal behavior of the strip due to signicant enhancement in the width of impingement region resulting in an increase in heat extraction rate. It was noted that the coiling temperature reduces by 200 C when the nozzle width is doubled from 1 to 2 cm 41 . Accelerated Cooling Accelerated cooling refers to controlled cooling methods, using an airwater mist, polymer, or water cooling, which are faster than the air cooling. The accelerated cooling was initially used in the hot-strip mill of Brinsworth, UK, to achieve lower coiling temperature with improved mechanical property without the necessity of the long cooling zone after the rolling 42 . Accelerated cooling has played a signicant role in the production of modern rail steel, as it enables phase transformation at lower temperature resulting in lower pearlite interlamellar spacing with low wear resistance. For example, for the conventional CMn rail steel, the pearlite interlamellar spacing can be reduced to 100 nm at the nose of the pearlite start temperature as compared to 200400 nm 3 achieved by the air cooling at higher transformation temperature. There are essentially three variants of accelerated cooling referred as a conventional heat treatment, b off-line, and c in-line head hardening processes. In the conventional heat treatment process, the entire rail is reheated to austenizing temperature 840 860 C and subsequently quenched in oil to produce a ne pearlitic structure 3 . However, it is

SAHAY ET AL. ON OVERVIEW OF PEARLITIC RAIL STEEL 15

FIG. 14Comparison between hardness proles developed during fully heat treated, off-line, and in-line hardening of rail sections (adapted from Ref [3]). important to account for the increase in oil bath temperature due to heat absorption from hot steel as well as austenite to pearlite heat of transformation recalescence . This is achieved by oil bath circulation. Also, the bainite phase is avoided by maintaining the oil at 40 C. This methodology was widely used as it resulted in premium rail steel with very uniform and ne pearlitic microstructure. In the method, the head, web, and base sections of the rail achieves uniform strength and hardness. For the conventional CMn steel, the typical Brinnel hardness values that can be achieved by this method at the rail head surface and core are 375 and 365, respectively 3 . The residual stress developed during the quenching is removed by tempering the rail at around 450 C. The major disadvantage of this method is the necessity of the additional processing step of reheating quenching, resulting in higher process cost as well as reduction in plant productivity. In the off-line head-hardening method, the head of the rail is selectively heated to the austenitic temperatures by induction or ame heating followed by accelerated cooling using airwater mist to obtain a very ne pearlitic structure. Due to the selected heating, high quenching rates are achieved by the bulk of the steel, in addition to the external cooling. Due to the selective nature of the process, there is a signicant variation in microstructure and mechanical properties in the rails produced by this method. For example, for the conventional CMn steel, the Brinell hardness at the top surface could be 368 as compared to 287 in the core 3 . One of the major concerns of this method is the signicant difference in mechanical properties at the junction of head and web, which at times results in separation, especially at the curved tracks. Also, signicant residual stresses are generated during this selective hardening process. Furthermore, the necessity to reheat, even though selectively, the rail in this method is not desired due to higher process cost and lower productivity. The in-line head-hardening process is the most sophisticated and efcient method, where the accelerated cooling process forms an integral part of the hot-rolling process. This method utilizes the heat of the hot-rolling process, thereby eliminating additional reheating steps. The computerized cooling control continuously changes the water ow rates to achieve constant microstructure throughout the length of the rail. As the process keeps pace with the hot-rolling milling, four to ve times higher productivity levels are achieved as compared to the off-line method. The high productivity and low operational cost justies the high capital cost associated with precise control system. The precise cooling control system results in very uniform microstructure and properties. The hardness proles of the in-line head-hardened process has been compared with conventional and off-line processes in Fig. 14. It can be seen that the hardness prole very similar to the conventional method and far superior to the off-line method can be achieved by this technique. Another advantage of the in-line method is that the sophisticated cooling produces very straight

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FIG. 15A schematic presentation of water spray conguration for in-line head hardening (adapted from Ref [43]).

rails, thereby removing additional straightening steps essential for off-line method. In the in-line method developed by Algoma Steel Corporation, Canada 8 the rail is cyclically cooled from 790 to 565 C. The cyclic cooling is achieved by low pressure water spray followed by air-recovery zones between the water sprays. The typical composition of this rail steel comprised 0.70.8 % C, 0.75 1.05 % Mn, 0.20.5 % Si, 0.20.7 % Cr, 0.020.1 % V, and 0.05 % Mo. As illustrated in Fig. 15, bafes are used to prevent water spray from reaching the web region, thereby keeping the rail ange hot, while the head is force cooled. The temperature time plot for the three different locations across the head of the rail is shown in Fig. 16. The cyclic cooling prole due to air-recovery zones can be observed near the surface of the rail head. Also, increase in steel temperature due to heat ow from inside in the recovery zone as well as heat of transformation can be observed. Furthermore, the nearly constant temperature prole throughout the cross section, after the initial cooling, can be noted in this method. The hardness prole from surface to core of the rail head obtained by this method is shown in Fig. 17 for two different transformation temperatures. It can be observed that fairly uniform hardness can be achieved by this method due to the precisely controlled cooling condition described above. Furthermore, it can be noted that signicant improvement in hardness can be achieved by reducing the transformation temperature. For example, when the transformation temperature was reduced from 638 to 582 C, the surface hardness increased from 300 to 340 BHN. This is due to a reduction in pearlite lamellae spacing with a reduction in transformation temperature 43 . Different companies have developed variants of in-line cooling methods. For example, Nippon Steel can process several rails in an in-line head-hardening steel, whereas VoestAlpine steel uses dipping of rail head into aqueous synthetic polymers 3 . In a recent work, Zhan and Wang 30 have described signicant improvements in head-hardening technology in China. The new induction heating coil enables higher

SAHAY ET AL. ON OVERVIEW OF PEARLITIC RAIL STEEL 17

FIG. 16The cooling prole of rail steel at three different locations in the head portion (adapted from Ref [43]).

uniformity of 50 C as compared to 100 C obtained in the conventional method. This results in uniform hardness in the head hardened rail. In this innovative two step cooling method 30 , rst compressed air is used for austenite to pearlite transformation followed by mist cooling for obtaining straight rail proles. In the rst step, the transformation is accurately controlled whereas in the second step deformation is controlled. It must be noted that the introduction of second step reduces the high power consumption associated with the air compressor. The uniform hardness obtained by this method is shown in Fig. 18. Furthermore, signicant improvement in impact toughness 29.1 41.8 J / cm2 has been achieved over the in-line method. The rails heat treated by this methodology are extensively used in China as well as in South Koreas railway network 30 .

FIG. 17The hardness prole of the rail head measured from the top of the surface to the interior as shown in the inset picture for the as-received sample and heat treated isothermally at various temperatures (adapted from Ref [43]).

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FIG. 18Comparing the hardness prole of the head-hardened rails cross section (adapted from Ref [30]).

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties Austenite to pearlitic transformation is a diffusion-controlled process and is governed by nucleation and growth processes. Carbon diffusion through austenite is the rate controlling step during this transformation. Most of the mechanical properties depend on the formation of pearlitic structure. A ne and 100 % pearlitic structure, low interlamellar spacing, produces improved mechanical properties such as wear resistance, i.e., the smaller the interlamellar spacing, the greater the wear resistance and vice versa. These microstructures can be tailored by understanding the transformation mechanism. The interlamellar spacing varies inversely with undercooling below the equilibrium eutectoid transformation temperature; the lower the transformation temperature, the ner the interlamellar spacing. The effect of transformation temperature on mechanical properties has been illustrated in Fig. 19. Rail steels may contain variable microstructures such as grade 700, which possesses a mixed microstructure of 30 % ferrite and 70 % coarse pearlite. Grade 1100 exhibits up to 100 % ne pearlitic structure for head-hardened HH 1100 grades. Their selection is dependent on the required properties. Both grades 1100 and HH 1100 exhibit a tensile strength of 11001200 MPa 44 . Grade 1100 rail steel contains around 1 % Cr whereas grade HH 1100 contains no Cr Table 7 . Wear resistance along with good weldability, strength, and fracture resistance of rail steels are among some of the essential properties required for heavy axle loads and improved train speed. Conventional rail steels primarily contain near-eutectoid pearlitic microstructure. Pearlite characteristically possesses a

FIG. 19The effect of cooling stop temperature on YS and UTS of rail steel (adapted from Ref [43]).

SAHAY ET AL. ON OVERVIEW OF PEARLITIC RAIL STEEL 19

TABLE 7Typical chemical composition, tensile strength, and microstructure of different rail steels [44]. Rail Steels Crane rail Flat Bottom Rails Grade 700 Grade 900 Grade 1100 Head-hardened 1100 %C 0.35 0.5 0.75 0.75 0.75 %Mn 0.8 1.0 1.1 1.0 0.9 %Cr Tensile Strength MPa 600 700 900 1100 1100 Microstructure 50 % pearlite 50 % coarse pearlite 30 % ferrite 70 % coarse pearlite 100 % coarse pearlite 100 % ne pearlite 100 % ne pearlite

mixture of alternating layers lamellae of relatively soft ferrite and a hard brittle iron carbide called cementite. The pearlitic structure exhibits good wear resistance because of the presence of hard carbides and toughness due to the presence of a soft ferrite phase. Wear behavior of pearlitic rails has been studied at the Facility for Accelerated Service Testing FAST , in Pueblo, Colorado. FAST has a 4.8-mile long rail, which is subjected to actual train service. In one study, the wear behavior was determined for two steels exhibiting the same 100 % pearlitic structure, although one steel possessed a greater hardness than the other. The results showed that wear is a threestage process E. L. Brown and G. Krauss, unpublished research, Colorado School of Mines, 1982 , where the rst stage involves severe plastic deformation and the depth of the deformed zone was found to be shallower in the case of the harder steel. The second stage involves formation of subsurface cracks, which spalled off the rail as small slivers or akes. The rst stage of wear can be controlled by steel hardness. In study, Clayton and Danks 45 observed that the hardness of pearlite increases with decreasing interlamellar spacing as shown in Fig. 20. They also studied the effect of wear rate on pearlite spacing as well as on hardness. The results Figs. 2022 show that the wear rate decreases with decreasing interlamellar spacing and increasing hardness 45 . Hyzak and Bernstein 46 studied the effect of prior austenite grain size and pearlite colony size on mechanical properties as shown in Fig. 16 for fully pearlitic microstructures see also Fig. 23 . They observed that for the same pearlite spacing a coarse austenite provides better hardness and YS than a ne austenite grain size. It was observed by Houin et al. 47 that the YS and the ultimate yield strength UTS increase with increasing carbon content with the eutectoid composition 0.8 %C exhibiting a maximum. The ductility measured by reduction in an area of eutectoid steel 100 % pearlite was found to be signicantly less than hypoeutectoid steels 47 . For the same interlamellar spacing, pearlite is discontinuous in hypoeutectoid steel and continuous in eutectoid steels. However, hypoeutectoid steels exhibit lower

FIG. 20Hardness of the pearlite phase as a function of interlamellar spacing for various steels (adapted from Ref [45]).

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FIG. 21Wear rate of pearlite as a function of interlamellar spacing for rail steels tested at two different contact pressures as indicated (adapted from Ref [45]). YS than eutectoid steels. It was also observed that pearlite with a carbon content of 0.6 % with a very ne lamellar structure produces high YS as well as a reduction in area. Rolling fatigue is the predominant failure mechanism in the rail steel. The interplay of residual stresses and microstructure features on fatigue crack initiation and propagation is extremely complex and necessitates a detailed discussion, which will be addressed in the subsequent article. In the following section, the effect of microstructure on fatigue failure and processing induced residual stress and the resultant distortion will be briey covered. Fatigue defects are mainly caused by maximum shear stresses in the upper part of the rail head and by stress concentrations near nonmetallic inclusions in the matrix. Moreover, an increase in tensile strength is often recommended for the improvement of fatigue properties of rail steels 48 . Fine pearlite structure is preferred versus coarse pearlite for the prevention of crack initiation. In addition, fatigue crack propagation in pearlitic rail steels also depends upon the grain boundary ferrite. Cyclic loading performed 49 on

FIG. 22Wear rate of pearlite as a function of hardness for rail steels tested at two different contact pressures as indicated for a series of rail steels (adapted from Ref [45]).

SAHAY ET AL. ON OVERVIEW OF PEARLITIC RAIL STEEL 21

FIG. 23(a) Hardness and (b) YS as a function of pearlite interlamellar spacing for fully pearlitic microstructures (adapted from Ref [46]). the single-edge notch specimens machined from the rail heads and wheel webs indicate grain boundary ferrite in a pearlitic microstructure. The results Fig. 24 show that traces of grain boundary ferrite 2 4 % by volume may reduce crack growth rates by a factor of two at intermediate and low growth rates 5 104 mm/ cycle . The railhead contains mostly nonmetallic sulde stringer inclusions aligned parallel to the rail axis. Fatigue experiments performed with sulde inclusions in the rail steel from 0.097 to 0.318 percentages do not exhibit an observable effect on the overall crack growth rate or the fatigue growth mechanism. Masumoto et al. 50 report that a quenched and tempered microstructure and a ne pearlite microstructure exhibit slower fatigue crack propagation rates than a coarse pearlite microstructure. Residual Stress and Distortion of Rail Steel As the cross sections of the railway track steel are fairly large, the thermomechanical processing becomes nonuniform. During the thermomechanical processing, there are spatial variations in cooling rates across the cross section as well as the length of the rail. As a result, different locations undergo transformation at

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FIG. 24Fatigue crack growth rate as a function of fatigue cycle for pearlitic rail steel (Ref [49]). different time, resulting in residual stresses in the rail. The residual stress developed in the hot rolling process as well as during the cooling process, leads to bending or fatigue failure before and/or during service 51 . The phase transformation austenite/pearlite or austenite to bainite in a material results in specic volume change that cannot be elastically accommodated and results in plastic deformation. A homogeneous temperature distribution produces a homogeneous plastic deformation throughout the work piece, however, if the temperature is inhomogeneous different temperature at different part of the work piece some part of the deformation energy is stored as residual stress because different parts of the work piece undergo different rates of transformation . Therefore, the distortion of rail production line after hot rolling is due to the inhomogeneous temperature prole within the rail producing different transformation rates 52 . Another important source of residual stress is during the roller straightening operation to correct for buckling that develops during cooling of the rail. Apart from the development of residual stress during the rail manufacturing process, bucking can also be caused by the rolling of the wheels at the head area of rails

FIG. 25The calculated bending (camber) as function of cooling time for the rail steel (adapted from Ref [53]).

SAHAY ET AL. ON OVERVIEW OF PEARLITIC RAIL STEEL 23

FIG. 26(a) The residual stress of a rail across a cross section in longitudinal direction at a distance z of 1500 mm from the edge. (b) The residual stress distribution along the symmetry line (adapted from Ref [53]).

that comes in contact with the wheels. It is important to estimate the magnitude of distortion and residual stress during the manufacturing of rail steel. Residual stress development and distortion of rail during cooling to ambient temperature after hot rolling has been simulated 53 . The thermomechanical analysis was carried out using general purpose ANSYS software. The magnitude of the calculated bending camber during air cooling to ambient temperature is shown in Fig. 25. The computed residual stress varies from a 27.5 MPa in tension at the middle of the web to 83.5 MPa in compression at the tip of the base Fig. 26 . Moreover, the calculated stress value indicates a change of stress from compressive to tensile from the surface to the center of the head and a change from tensile to compressive stress state from the center to the tip of the base. The variation of residual stress along the symmetry line is shown in Fig. 26 b . The state of residual stress is compressive at the head and tensile at the web as well as the base. Sommer et al. 54 patented a heat treatment method wherein the distortion can be reduced substantially. The method comprises preheating the entire rail at around 1000 F, which is below the transformation temperature followed by induction heating the rail head to 1900 F and ange at 1500 F, which is above transformation temperature along with a balanced thermal deformation along the neutral axis. The next step is to spray quench the head and ange to 1000 F, which is below the transformation temperature to produce a desired microstructure while achieving a balanced thermal deformation of the rail about the neutral axes. In the nal step, the entire rail is cooled to ambient temperature with a balanced thermal deformation. This method signicantly reduces the nal mechanical distortion compensation due to differential heating. Wang et al. 55 employed moire interferometry to measure the residual stresses in rails. Precise measurement of residual stresses in the railway tracks aids in estimating the mechanical properties, including its fatigue life. Summary Pearlitic rail steel is extensively used for railway track due to its excellent mechanical properties and wear resistance. Precise control of chemistry and thermomechanical processing is required to obtain the desired pearlitic microstructure with ne lamellae spacing. This is achieved by carrying out the pearlitic transformation at the lowest possible temperature. It is important to precisely control the phase transformation during thermomechanical processing to obtain the desired microstructure and mechanical properties of the rail steel. The various physical metallurgy aspects during the production and design of rail steel have been discussed.

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References 1 2 Bhadeshia, H. K. D. H., High Performance Bainitic Steels, Mater. Sci. Forum, Vols. 500501, 2005, pp. 6374. Bhadeshia, H. K. D. H., Novel Steels for Rails, Encyclopedia of Materials Science: Science and Technology, K. Buschow, R. W. Cahn, M. C. Flemings, B. Iischner, E. J. Kramer, and S. Mahajan, Eds., Pergamon, United Kingdom, 2002, pp. 17. Bramtt, B. L., Accelerated Cooling of Rail, Iron & Steelmaker, Vol. 18, No. 6, 1991, pp. 3341. Bouse, G. K., Bernstein, I. M., and Stone, D. H., Role of Alloying and Microstructure on the Strength and Toughness of Experimental Rail Steels, D. H. Stone and G. G. Knupp, Eds., ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, 1978 pp. 145161. Singh, U. P., Singh, R., and Jha, S., Inuence of Microalloying on Fracture Toughness and Wear Resistance of Rail Steel, Scand. J. Metall., Vol. 24, 1995, pp. 180186. Cramer, R. E., AREA Proceedings, American Railway Engineering Association, Vol. 50, 1949, pp. 537539. Stone, D. H., and Steele, R. K., The Effect of Mechanical Properties Upon the Performance of Railroad Rails, D. H. Stone, and G. G. Knupp, Eds., ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, 1978, pp. 2147. Ackert, R. J., and Nott, M. A., Accelerated Water Cooling of Railway Rails In-Line with the Hot Rolling Mill, Proceedings of the International Symposium on Accelerated Cooling of Rolled Steel, Pergamon Press, United Kingdom, 1988, pp. 359372. Liscic, B., Tensi, H. M., and Totten, G. E., Chapter 22Non-Lubricating Process Fluids: Steel Quenching Technology, ASTM Fuels and Lubricants HandbookTechnology, Properties, Performance and Testing, G. E. Totten, S. R. Westbrook, and R. J. Shah, Eds., ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, 2003, pp. 587634. Bernardin, J. D., and Mudawar, I., Validation of the Quench Factor Technique in Predicting Hardness in Heat Treatable Aluminum Alloys, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, Vol. 38, 1995, pp. 863873. Knzel, T., Einuss der Wiederbenetzung auf die Allotrope Modifkatsionsnderung Tauchgekhlter Metallkrper, Dissertation, Faculty for Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Munich, 1986, p. 138. Stitzelberger-Jakob, P. Hrtervorherbestimmung mit Hilfe des Benetzungsablaufes beim Tauschkhlen von Sthlen, Dissertation, Faculty for Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Munich, 1991, p. 160. Canale, L. C. F., Kobasko, N. I., and Totten, G. E., Intensive Quenching: Part 1What Is It? International Heat Treatment and Surface Engineering, Vol. 1, 2007, pp. 3033. Kobasko, N. I., Totten, G. E., Webster, G. M., and Bates, C. E., Comparison of Cooling Capacity of Poly Alkylene Glycol Quenchants with Water and Oil, 18th Heat Treating Society Conference Proceedings, H. Walton, and R. Wallis, Eds., ASM International, Materials Park, OH, 1998, pp. 559567. Fernandes, P., and Prabhu, K. N., Comparative Study of Heat Transfer and Wetting Behaviour of Conventional and Bioquenchants for Industrial Heat Treatment, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, Vol. 51, 2008, pp. 526538. Beck, J. V., Surface Heat Flux Determination Using an Integral Method, Nucl. Eng. Des., Vol. 7, 1968, pp. 170178. Penha, R. N., Canale, L. C. F., Totten, G. E., and Sarmiento, G. S., Simulation of Heat Transfer Properties and Residual Stress Analyses of Cooling Curves Obtained from Quenching Studies, J. ASTM Int., 2006, Vol. 3, Paper ID JAI13614. Hernandez-Morales, B., Brimacombe, J. K., and Hawbolt, E. B., Application of Inverse Techniques to Determine Heat-Transfer Coefcients in Heat-Treating Operations, J. Mater. Eng. Perform., Vol. 1, 1992, pp. 763771. Narazaki, M., Totten, G. E., and Webster, G. M., Hardening by Reheating and Quenching, Handbook of Residual Stress and Deformation of Steel, G. E. Totten, M. Howes, and T. Inoue, Eds., ASM International, Materials Park, OH, 2002, pp. 248295.

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