Method of Hardenability Bands Calculation for Low Alloy Steels

Method of hardenability bands calculation for low-alloy steels has been proposed. The method is based on the Grossman method for calculating hardenability from chemical composition, included in the ASTM A255 standard. In contrast to the ASTM method, which allows calculating hardenability curves for a certain chemical composition, the proposed method allows calculating hardenability band for a range of compositions of a certain steel grade. For calculating a hardenability band, several hundred virtual heats with different chemical compositions are generated. The method can be used for hardenability based selection of steels for manufacturing quenched and tempered parts, as well as for developing quenching regimes for parts made of steels for which there is no reference hardenability data. As a part of the verification of the method, calculation results have been compared with hardenability bands for different steel grades present in various metal products specifications. The proposed calculation method in most cases gives acceptable accuracy within ±20%.