Proceedings of the 24th ASM Heat Treating Society Conference, September 17-19, 2007 COBO Center, Detroit, Michigan,

USA. Copyright 2007 ASM International. All rights reserved.

Fluidized Bed Quenching Performance and Its Application for Heat Treating Aluminum Alloys
J. Keist Arizotah, LLC, Plymouth, MN, 55447 USA S. Chaudhury and D. Apelian Metals Processing Institute, WPI, Worcester, MA, 01609 USA

Abstract
In the heat treatment of aluminum alloys, fluidized bed quenching is an attractive alternative to liquid quenching processes since the part does not develop a vapor barrier during quenching. This lack of a vapor barrier significantly reduces residual stresses and part distortion that often plagues liquid based quenching techniques. The heat transfer rate of the quenching process, however, is lower than can be obtained by liquid based quenchants. The lower heat transfer rate may rule out fluidized bed quenching for some applications due to part geometry or alloy quench sensitivity. This paper proposes a method to determine the applicability of fluidized bed quenching for a given part. In this research, two castings of a given geometry and alloy were analyzed for the feasibility of fluidized bed quenching. The heat transfer characteristics of a fluidized bed quenching system were measured and the quench sensitivities of the alloys were approximated. Computer modeling was then utilized to determine the applicability of fluidized bed quenching for the heat treatment of these castings.

Figure 1: Picture of two cast wheels taken during immersion into the fluidized bed. Solution heat treating (T6 and T7 tempers) of heat treatable aluminum alloy castings is conducted to enhance strength, impact resistance, and toughness. Solution heat treating consists of three main steps: solution, quenching, and aging. During solution, the part is heated to a temperature just below the eutectic temperature for the alloy. At solution temperature, the strengthening phases are dissolved into the aluminum matrix. After a sufficient soaking time at solution temperature, the part is quenched to lock in the strengthening elements into solution within the aluminum matrix. Subsequent aging allows the strengthening elements to precipitate out as small, fine phases that strengthen the aluminum matrix. A critical step in solution heat treating is the quenching process. The rate of quenching determines the percentage of the strengthening elements that remain in solution after quenching. A rapid quench will force a higher percentage of strengthening elements to remain in solution. A slow quench, however, will allow the strengthening elements to precipitate
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Introduction
Fluidized bed technology has a history of over 100 years. An American patent in 1879 first pointed out the excellent temperature uniformity of roasting minerals under fluidized conditions [1]. The fluidized bed consists of a medium of fine hard particles (i.e. sand) that is partially suspended by a fluidizing gas. The partial suspension of the medium allows the particles to easily slide past each other resulting in the fluidizing bed acting remarkably similar to a fluid. The fluid like nature of the fluidized bed allows for easy insertion, conveyance, and extraction of parts for heat treating. Figure 1 shows two cast wheels partially submerged in a fluidized bed. Fluidized bed technology has found wide use in the heat treatment of steels, but its use for heat treating other metals has been limited. Recently, however, there has been considerable interest in utilizing fluidized bed technology for the solution heat treatment of aluminum alloys [2,3].

out of solution as large and blocky precipitates and these precipitates contribute minimally to strengthening the alloy. Quenching a part too slowly will effectively reduce the peak strength that can be achieved after aging. To quench aluminum parts quickly, the industry has traditionally used water based quenchants as a quenching medium. Water based quenchants exhibit excellent heat transfer rates and are capable of quenching large parts (greater than 20 kg) within seconds. A drawback of water based quenchants, however, is the possibility of developing large stresses during quenching that can result in high residual stresses, part distortion, and cracking. Large stresses build up within the part because of large thermal gradients that develop within the part during quenching. These large thermal gradients are the result of vapor barriers that form around the part during the initial quenching stage as the part is first immersed into the quenchant. For castings that are susceptible to distortion and cracking, quenching is often conducted by forced air. Utilizing forced air assures that minimal thermal gradients will develop during the quenching process thus reducing the susceptibility to distortion and cracking. The drawback, however, is the low heat transfer rate of forced air which results in a slow cooling rate for the part. Forced air quenching may not be a feasible option for many quench sensitive alloys. As an alternative, fluidized bed quenching offers an attractive middle ground between forced air and water based quenchants. As shown in Fig. 2, the heat transfer coefficient that can be obtained by the fluidized bed lies between forced air convection and water [1]. Secondly, in contrast to water based quenchants, the particles of the fluidized bed remains in direct contact with the surface of the part throughout the entire quenching process. Since a vapor barrier does not form, minimal thermal gradients develop within the part minimizing stresses. Compared to quenching in water, it was shown that quenching in the fluidized bed reduced residual stresses by nearly 70% in an A356.2 PM casting [4].

The main drawback of fluidized bed quenching is the lower heat transfer rates as compared to water based quenchants. As with forced air quenching, fluidized bed quenching may not be feasible for some quench sensitive alloys. For example, Chaudhury and Apelian observed a significant decrease in tensile properties for Al-Si-Mg type aluminum alloy D357 sample quenched in the fluidized bed as compared to samples quenched in water. In contrast, Al-Si-Mg-Cu alloys are less quench sensitive than Al-Si-Mg alloys and the authors did not observe a decrease in tensile properties for aluminum alloy 354 or Sr modified aluminum alloy 319 with fluidized bed quenching as compared to water quenching [5]. Utilizing the fluidized bed technology for quenching aluminum alloys is relatively new and the applicability for various alloy systems or size of castings is largely unknown. This paper helps lays out how the applicability of fluidized bed quenching can be easily determined for quenching castings depending on the quench sensitivity of the alloy and the dimensions of the casting. The heat transfer characteristics were measured for a fluidized bed system that consisted of staurolite sand fluidized by ambient air. The quench sensitivity of aluminum alloy 319 and 356 type alloys was approximated by simulated TTT diagrams for these alloys. Finally, finite element analysis (FEA) was utilized to determine the applicability of two castings (356 PM cast nail gun housing and a 319 sand cast engine block).

Heat Transfer Characteristics

The heat transfer characteristics of the fluidized bed can vary widely and is dependent on various factors including characteristics of the solid particles, properties of the fluidizing gas, and bed temperature. For example, utilizing a higher heat conductive fluidizing gas such as helium instead of ambient air can result in doubling the effective heat transfer rate from the casting during quenching. Depending on the characteristics of the fluidized bed, the heat transfer rate for the quenching system can range from 120 to 1200 W/mK [1]. An empirical model for determining the heat transfer coefficient of the fluidized bed was developed by Saxena [6] where the heat transfer coefficient, h, was defined as follows:

h = (1 f b )

k eo c ps

+ f b t (Tb2 + Tw2 )(Tb + Tw )

where: f b is the volume fraction of the air pockets within the fluidized bed k eo is the effective thermal conductivity of fluidized bed

is the density of the fluidized bed

Figure 2: Comparative heat transfer coefficients in W/mK for water, fluidized bed, and forced air quenching.

c ps is the specific heat of the bed particles is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant

t is the total emissivity

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 r is the residence time

Tb is the absolute temperature of the air pockets within the
fluidized bed Tw is the absolute temperature of the part From the above model, one can note the importance of various factors in relation to the heat transfer characteristics of the fluidized bed system. For example, increasing the overall heat transfer coefficient of the fluidized bed may be achieved by choosing a higher thermally conductive fluidizing gas, a denser medium, or a medium with a higher specific heat. Using this model to predict the heat transfer coefficient for a particular system, however, may prove cumbersome. Many of the values required for this model are not readily available and require means to experimentally determine them. Point Load Quenching Model A simpler method is proposed to obtain the global heat transfer rate of a fluidized bed by utilizing the heat transfer and energy balance equations and assuming a point load. The heat transfer and energy balance equations are as follows:

mc p hA

(Eq. 4)

From the cooling curve obtained by quenching a sample in the fluidized bed, , can be obtained by finding the best fit curve for the temperature data using the following equation:

T p (t ) = T + (T p (0) T )e

(Eq. 5)

The global heat transfer coefficient, h, can then be determined by rearranging Eq. 4 where

h=

mc p

(Eq. 6)

Q(t ) = hA(T T p (t ) )
and

(Eq. 1)

Q(t ) = mc p
where:

dT p dt

(Eq. 2)

Measurement of Heat Transfer To obtain the global heat transfer coefficient for the fluidized bed, temperature data from a cast flat plate was obtained during quenching. The flat plate was a permanent mold cast of aluminum alloy A356.2. The plate dimensions were 28 cm in length, 20 cm in width, and 2.5 cm in thickness. Heat treating was conducted in a batch fluidized bed line shown in Fig. 3. The batch line consisted of a solution, quenching, and aging beds. The dimension of the work chamber for the beds was 70 by 90 cm with a depth of 120 cm. The fluidized beds consisted of staurolite sand that was fluidized by ambient air at room temperature.

Q(t ) is the heat flow rate h is the global heat transfer coefficient A is the surface area of the part T is the bulk fluidized bed temperature Tp (t ) is the part temperature as a function of time, t m is the mass of the part c p is the specific heat of the part
Combing the two energy balance equations and solving for the differential equation yields

T p (t ) = T + (T p (0) T )e
where

hAt mc p

(Eq. 3)

Figure 3: Batch fluidized bed line consisting of three fluidized beds for solution, quenching, and aging. The casting was heated to a solution soaking temperature of 548C (1020F) and allowed to soak for 30 minutes. The casting was then transferred to the fluidizing bed quenching system and immersed within 10 seconds. The temperature of the quenching system was monitored by a K-type thermocouple and was maintained at 21C (70F). The castings were orientated vertically as shown in Fig. 4 to allow for optimum contact of the quenching medium on both sides of the plate casting. Temperature within the casting was
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Tp (0) is the initial temperature of the part.

To simplify the exponent in Eq. 3, the terms of the exponent were grouped together into a time constant, . The definition of is:

monitored with five K-type thermocouples that were embedded along with width of the casting . The K-type thermocouple measured 1.5 mm in diameter (0.062 in); data was acquired every second from each thermocouple.

The calculated time constant, , from the best fit curve was 79.7 seconds. At the calculated time constant, the average temperature of the part was at 190C (374F) corresponding to 63.2% of the temperature drop from 540C (1000F) to 30C (86F). Assuming a density of 2.65 g/cm and a specific heat of 963 J/kgK for the aluminum alloy, the global heat transfer coefficient for the system was calculated (Eq. 6) to be 340 W/mK (60 Btu/fthF).

Alloy Quench Sensitivity

It is proposed that a critical time constant can be used to approximate the quench sensitivity for an aluminum alloy. The time constant for a cooling curve is defined by Eq. 4. The time constant, , corresponds to the time when the temperature of the part has cooled 63.2% of the total temperature range (initial temperature of the part minus the temperature of the quenching media). A lower time constant, , implies a faster overall quenching rate and vice versa. If the quench sensitivity of a particular alloy requires that it needs to be quenched at a certain rate, a critical time constant, crit, can be calculated for that alloy. crit is defined as the critical time constant; values equal to or below crit will achieve an adequate quenching rate. The critical time constant can be obtained from either laboratory experiments to determine the quench sensitivity i.e., a Jominey quench test, or via simulated TTT diagrams for the alloy. TTT diagrams are used to understand the role of cooling rate on the heat treatment characteristics of the alloy. In order to assure that a minimal percentage of strengthening elements comes out of solution during quenching, one would like to quench a part at a fast enough rate so that the quenching path falls below the nose of the TTT diagram. TTT diagrams simulated for 319 and 356 alloys are shown in Figures 6 and 7, respectively. The simulations were carried out by considering that the alloys were cooled from the solutionizing temperature such that only 0.2 wt% phase transformation took place. If the quenching rate for the alloy was slow enough that the curve was above the nose of the TTT diagram then the CuAl2 phase will start to precipitate out of the aluminum matrix. To maintain the Cu and Al in solution, one needs to assure that the quenching curve of a part quenched in the fluidized bed will fall below the nose for the TTT diagram. For aluminum alloy 319, the nose of the ' - CuAl2 (THETA_PRIME at 0.2 wt%) curve was approximated at a temperature of 250C (480F) for a time of 180 seconds. The critical time constant, crit, for the 319 TTT curve of ' - CuAl2 was calculated to be 240 seconds for an alloy quenched from 500C to 30C (932F to 86F). Aluminum alloy A356.2 is a quench sensitive alloy and it is evident from the TTT diagram that the nose of the curves is further left than those of the curves simulated for 319. The nose of the ' - Mg2Si (BETA_PRIME at 0.2 wt%) curve was approximated at a temperature of 340C (640F) for a time of 20 seconds. The critical time constant, crit, for this alloy was

Figure 4: Plate orientation and five thermocouple locations for measurement of the global heat transfer coefficient.

Figure 5: Average cooling curve of the flat plate casting in the fluidized bed along with the calculated best fit curve and the difference between best fit data and lab data. The average quenching curve was obtained for the 1-inch flat plate by averaging all the temperature data from the thermocouples. A best fit curve utilizing Eq. 5 was fitted to the laboratory data. Fig. 5 shows the resulting average cooling curve with the best fit curve along with the difference between the two curves. The best fit curve followed the temperature data within +/- 6C (+/- 11F).

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calculated to be 49 seconds quenching from 540C to 30C (1000F to 86F).

Finite Element Analysis

Finite element analysis can be used to determine the cooling rates within various sections of the part. Analyzing the simulated quenching path at various locations and comparing the results to the critical time constant, crit, a prediction was made whether the part will undergo an adequate quenching rate. Two castings were analyzed to determine the applicability of these castings for fluidized bed quenching. This first casting was a permanent mold cast housing for a nail gun. The aluminum alloy for this casting was Al-Si-Mg alloy (A356.2). The casting exhibited a complicated geometry and had both thick and thin sections. A second part analyzed was an 8 cylinder engine block with a simplified geometry cast from a non-quench sensitive Al-Si-Mg-Cu alloy (319). For this analysis, the global heat transfer coefficient (340 W/mK) measured from the flat plate was used on all surfaces of the parts. Figure 8 shows the temperature profile from a cut away of the A356.2 nail gun casting near 49 seconds which corresponds to the crit that was calculated from the TTT diagram. At crit the temperature of the casting should be at or below 220C (430F) to assure an adequate quench (63.2% of the total temperature range). The temperature profile of most of the casting was below 220C, however, the thicker regions were still above 220C which mean that a loss of strength properties may result in these regions.

Figure 6: TTT diagram of aluminum alloy 319 (Al-3.4Cu1.0Fe-0.1Mg-6.0Si-0.25Ti) for 0.2 wt% of phases transformed.

Figure 8: Finite element result showing the temperature distribution of a nail gun housing after 50 seconds of quenching in the fluidized bed. Temperatures are in degrees Celsius. Figure 9 shows the temperature profile of a simplified 8 cylinder engine block after 240 seconds quenched in the fluidized bed. This time corresponds to the crit that was calculated from the TTT diagram for 319. At crit, the temperature should be at or below 170C (338F) to assure an adequate quench. In this case, the entire casting was

Figure 7: TTT diagram of aluminum alloy 356 (Al-0.1Cu0.12Fe-0.35Mg-7.0Si-0.2Ti) for 0.2 wt% of phases transformed.

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sufficiently below 170C and therefore should be expected to achieve full tensile properties after aging.

A critical time constant, crit, was proposed as a method to approximate the quench sensitivity of an alloy. Using the point load quenching model, a part will undergo an adequate quenching rate if the time constant is at or below the critical time constant. From the finite element analysis, fluidized bed quenching a nail gun housing of aluminum alloy A356.2 exhibited excessively slow cooling rates in some sections. Aluminum alloy A356.2 (Al-Mg-Si alloy) is a quench sensitive alloy and the applicability of fluidized bed quenching for castings of these alloys should be carefully analyzed. In contrast to the nail gun housing, the finite element analysis predicted more than adequate cooling rates for all sections of a large 8-cylinder engine block of aluminum alloy 319 (Al-Cu-Mg-Si alloy). For low quench sensitivity alloys such as 319, the fluidized bed quenching process may offer a viable alternative for castings of various sizes and shapes.

Figure 9: Finite element result showing the temperature distribution in a cut-away of a simplified 8-cylinder engine block after 240 seconds of quenching in the fluidized bed. Temperatures are in degrees Celsius.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of Dave Dingmann (formerly with Arizotah, LLC) and for his work with the finite element modeling that was conducted for this research. In addition, Arizotah, LLC, would like to acknowledge the NIST Advanced Technology Program for its support in the advancement of the fluidized bed technology. Special thanks to Jean-Louis Staudenmann, NIST-ATP program manager, for his support and guidance.

Discussion
In this paper, a simple method is proposed to determine the applicability of fluidized bed quenching for a particular part that depends on part geometry and alloy. This method, however, should only be used as a first cut for determining the feasibility of fluidized bed quenching for a particular process. The global heat transfer coefficient calculated by assuming a point load is only applicable for parts of simple geometry. For complex parts with internal passages, it would be expected that heat transfer rates would be significantly lower from internal surfaces. With FEA analysis, however, one can change the heat transfer coefficient at various surfaces around the part. The local heat transfer coefficient can still be calculated using the method described in this paper by designing test pieces that more closely represent actual parts.

References
1. R. Reynoldson, Heat Treatment in Fluidized Bed Furnaces, pp 33-52, ASM International, Materials Park, Ohio (1993) S. Chaudhury and D. Apelian, Fluidized Bed Heat Treatment of Cast Al Alloys, in the proceedings of the John Campbell Symposium, TMS Annual Meeting, California, USA, p 283 (2005) S. Chaudhury and D. Apelian, Effect of Rapid Heating on Solutionizing Characteristics of Al-Si-Mg Alloy Using a Fluidized Bed, Metallurgical and Materials Trans. A, 37A, 763-778 (2006) J. Keist, D. Dingmann, and C. Bergman, Fluidized Bed Quenching: Reducing Residual Stresses and Distortion, In the Proceedings of the 23rd Heat Treating Society Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, 263270 (2005) S. Chaudhury and D. Apelian, Effects of Fluidized Bed Quenching on Heat Treating Characteristics of Cast Al-Si-Mg and Al-Si-Mg-Cu Alloys, Inter. J. of Cast Metals Research, 19(6), 361-369 (2006) S. Saxena, Advanced Heat Transfer, p 97 (1989)

2.

Conclusions
A point load may be used to obtain a simple model for the quenching of aluminum parts in the fluidized bed. From this model, the global heat transfer coefficient for the fluidized bed system can be easily calculated by applying a best fit curve of the model to the cooling curve of a sample. From the cooling analysis of an aluminum sample casting, the global heat transfer coefficient for a fluidized bed system using ambient air as the fluidizing gas and staurolite sand as the solid particles was 340 W/mK (60 Btu/fthF). 3.

4.

5.

6.
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