Material Data Development and Customization

Heat treatment process, such as carburizing and quench hardening using oil quenchant, requires tremendous amount of material data. DANTE has a rich amount of material data in the standard material database, which allow users to simply selecting the material to setup the model without the tedious effort of preparing the material data.

In some cases, new material needs to be added, or material properties need to be customized. The recommended material directory to store the customized material data is DANTEDB_UDB, as shown below.

DANTE offers a series of material data customization tools for material data customization. The most important material properties for customization include:

• Phase transformation kinetics

• Plasticity mechanical properties

• Coefficient of thermal expansion and transformation strains

• Hardness related properties (hardness of individual phases and iron carbide coarsening rate)

Austenite decomposing transformation during quenching is one of the most important material properties for modeling the heat treatment process. The data can be fitted from dilatometry test, TTT diagram. They can also be tuned based on Ideal Diameter (DI) and Jominy End Quench data.

Below is an example for fitting martensitic phase transformation from the experimental dilatometry data using DANTE tool Dilot_Fit. The fitting tool calculates the strain contributions from temperature change and phase transformations automatically. Please reference Dilot Fit.

Dilot_Fit can also be used to fit the diffusive phase transformations from continuous cooling and isothermal holding dilatometry test data. To fit the diffusive transformation material data for a wide temperature range, a series of examples data with different cooling rate or holding temperature will be needed. The figure below demonstrates the comparison between experimental dilatometry data and calculated data using the fitted diffusive phase transformation kinetics.

TTT diagrams can be used to fit the diffusive phase transformation data. Many TTT diagrams can be found in public domain or steel maker’s database. The Figure below compares the fitting result between an experimental TTT diagram and the calculated TTT diagram from the fitting using TTT_Fit utility tool. Please reference [TTT Fit](../../../Utility_Tools/TTT Fit/TTT Fit.md).

Ideal Diameter and Jominy curves are often reported by the steel makers, which can also be used to customize the material phase transformation data. DANTE utility tools, DI_Predictor, and Jominy_Predictor, are often used to tune the phase transformation for improved accuracy based on these reported data. The following Figures show the calculated DI and Jominy curves from the DANTE material database. Please reference [DI Predictor](../../../Utility_Tools/DI Predictor/DI Predictor.md) and [Jominy Predictor](../../../Utility_Tools/Jominy Predictor/Jominy Predictor.md).

The mechanical properties can also be customized using tension or compression tests with known phases over a given temperature range. The MEC_Fit utility tool makes it convenient to fit the data fitting for the material plasticity parameters. Please reference Mec Fit.

More detailed information about DANTE utility tools can be found using the link below. General