@bobjustbob and I agree sometimes ensuring the metallurgical aspects of the heat treatment are near perfect may be move valuable than cooling time, but here's my situation where I work:
I heat these rail in a furnace and let these rail air cool but it takes 6-10 hours, which inhibits...
@bobjustbob exactly. Doing it with high CFM fans may be the best thing ergonomically for this as well, so my main interest is the cooling time as well as the method. I can simulate these things with CFD but I was just curious if there was a metallurgic chart or rule of thumb or something that...
@bobjustbob Thank you that sounds ideal! I still don't have any charts or anything to work with to be able to tell ahead of time how quickly that would cool the steel from ~1,200 degrees Fahrenheit to 72 degrees Fahrenheit in agitated water. Would you happen to know a ballpark figure or a rule...
@bobjustbob Thank You I suspected as much. However, do you know if the reduction in hardness can be minimized by cooling the steel quicker after bringing it up to 1200 degrees F?
For example, if I had two pieces of rail steel with exactly the same composition which were both heated to 1200...
@kingnero no I am trying to heat the rail to make it more malleable for bending, but at the same time I need a quick way to cool it down after it has been heated and bent, without significantly changing the hardness or the microstructure.
I would like to heat a piece of track work rail steel of the following profile to the following temperature distribution, all shown in the picture at the link.
This track work can be of that cross-section in the link above, but extruded up to 80 feet long and is made of a low-alloy steel with...
