TITLE:
Numerical Simulation and Analysis of Heat Treatment Processes on AISI 1025 Steel Produced by Laser Engineered Net Shaping
AUTHORS:
Elphas Tum, Rehema Ndeda, James Mutua, Raghupatruni Prasad, Eyitao Olakanmi, Sisa Pityana
KEYWORDS:
Heat Treatment, Residual Stresses, Hardness, Microstructure, Numerical Simulation
JOURNAL NAME:
Modeling and Numerical Simulation of Material Science,
Vol.15 No.1,
November
14,
2024
ABSTRACT: Heat treatment processes, such as annealing and quenching, are crucial in determining residual stress evolution, microstructural changes and mechanical properties of metallic materials, with residual stresses playing a greater role in the performance of components. This paper investigates the effect of heat treatment on residual stresses induced in AISI 1025, manufactured using LENS. Finite element model was developed and simulated to analyze residual stress development. AISI 1025 samples suitable for tool and die applications in Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) filament production, were fabricated using Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS) process, followed by heat treatment where annealing and quenching processes were done. The material’s microstructure, residual stress and hardness of heat-treated samples under investigation, were compared against the as-built samples. The results indicated that after annealing, tensile residual stresses were reduced by 93%, resulting in a reduced crack growth rate, compared to the as-built sample, although the hardness was reduced significantly by 25%. On the other hand, high tensile residual stresses of 425 ± 14 MPa were recorded after quenching process with an improvement of hardness by 21%.