Development and Validation of CFD Methodology to Simulate Water Quenching Process

Abstract

A computer simulation methodology is developed to model the water quenching process for engine block and cylinder head. The methodology is based on the Eulerian-Eulerian two-fluid method implemented in existing commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. Due to the complex physics involved in the phase change and mass transfer, one of the prime objectives is to search and evaluate CFD tools that are capable of modeling the water quenching processes. Then the methodology is validated by comparing the CFD result with thermocouple data from lab experiments conducted in a controlled environment. Thorough comparison of results from various quench orientations indicated that the methodology is robust enough to produce reasonable and consistent results. The temperature history obtained by this methodology could be mapped to FEA model to predict residual stress, which in turn can be used to study the durability of the engine components.