An Investigation of Optimized Length Scales of the Heat Treatment of Metallic Plates

A moving metallic plate subject to heating and cooling boundary conditions is considered in this work. The plate is heated by an imposed heat  ux, and cooled down by an array of impinging jets through convection and radiation. The objective of the present work is determination of operating conditions for controlling the temperature distribution at the end of both heating and cooling sections. The results show that the temperature distribution becomes more uniform across the heating section with an increase in the heating length. An increase in the distance from the impinging jet to the plate causes an increase in the temperature values across the cooling section, and a decrease in the diameter of the impinging jet causes a decrease in the temperature values across the cooling section. It is also shown that an increase in cooling length and the addition of another impinging jet help to reduce the temperature values and increase the uniformity of the structure across the cooling section. Optimized values of the pertinent parameters for both hardening and tempering heat treatments were investigated.