THE EFFECT OF NON-UNIFORM HEAT TRANSFER ON AIR COOLED FORGINGS

The aims of the project are:-.To obtain a scientific understanding of how the forging process and air cooling, together with component orientation influences metallurgical structure, mechanical properties, residual stresses and distortion of forged components.-.To determine guidelines to allow the integration of the scientific understanding into the industrial forging environment.The overall strategy for the project is as follows. University of Bath will carry out experimental and numerical forging studies, closely following practice adopted at an Industrial collaborator. Bristol University will develop an air cooling rig and undertake controlled cooling studies of parts and explore how non-uniform heat transfer influences residual stresses. Bath and Bristol will carry out finite element analyses to predict residual stress microstructure and distortion of the components. Bath will enhance the models used to describe the cooling process and pass each upgrade onto Bristol. Bristol will use the models provided by Bath to run at the same time as completing the experiments. There will be a final stage in the experiments where the two experiments will be combined together.