COOLING INTENSITY OF INVERSE SOLUBILITY POLYALKYLENE GLYKOL POLYMERS AND SOME RESULTS OF INVESTIGATIONS FOCUSED ON MINIMIZING DISTORTION OF METAL COMPONENTS

Abstract

Poly(Alkylene Glycol) polymers of inverse solubility (PAG) provide ideal uniform cooling for minimizing distortion and preventing crack formation during hardening machine components and tools. However, in spite of ideal cooling, from time to time, a big distortion takes place during hardening process. A reason for a big distortion development during hardening in PAG solutions is explained and an idea how to fix the problem is suggested. It is shown that at the end of cooling coating can be locally dissolved by a cold water flow creating local open area where martensite transformation starts first. Due to greater specific volume of martensite, it creates a big distortion. To solve the problem, one should interrupt cooling process or stop agitation before insulating coating is dissolved. To perform correctly proposed technology, cooling intensity of inverse solubility PAG polymers of 1–20 % were investigated on the basis of use of regular thermal condition theory. As a result, dimensionless effective numbers Kn were obtained for recipes development. A technique for solving the problem is proposed by author. Examples of calculations are provided.