PDEng position: Energy & Process Technology

The PDEng project title is:
“Design of a new process route for closed die forging and subsequent energy-neutral heat treatment”

The evolution of deformation and temperature in the to-be-designed process can be predicted with the finite element program DEFORM. For this particular material, the flow stress evolution is not yet available and therefore, the influence on the forming process and the service life of the tools cannot be determined accurately.
Silicon is an important alloying element that enables creation of the ausferritic structure in the tempering treatment. Steel grade 61SiCr7 is a commercially available material, but in this project also another (silicon-alloyed) steel with slightly different composition could be considered. In literature, the ausferritic structure does not seem to be studied a lot, compared to e.g. the bainitic structure. VDL Weweler therefore aims to obtain good insight in the effects of applying this material structure in their production process.
To design a new process within the realm of the PDEng design assignment, you will investigate the following aspects:

What are the relevant product properties that are determined by the thermo-mechanical process?
What thermo-mechanical history leads to the required microstructure? If this is not sufficiently clear from literature or from the supplier, experiments can be performed with the Gleeble thermo-mechanical simulator at the University of Twente.
What models and model parameters in DEFORM are suitable to predict deformation in the forging process in the ausferritic phase of the material.
How does the fatigue strength of the product depend on the process settings?
Design a process in which hardening and tempering takes place directly after hot forming. Determine the process constraints such that the product fulfils the requirements.