Quenching intensity of cylinder loads in high pressure gas quenching

High pressure gas quenching is an established process for quench hardening of low alloyed steels. Quenching processes using gases show various ecological and economical advantages compared to quenching processes using liquid media. In industrial practice, the characterisation of the quenching intensity of specimens in the process is done typically in an indirect way, mostly by (destructive) testing of the material properties of the components after quenching (particularly the surface hardness), or by determination of cooling curves during the quenching process. Essential for the determination of the quenching intensity of a quenching process is the heat transfer between the component and the quenching media. Up to now, a forecast of the heat transfer distribution and therefore the quenching intensity in gas quenching is only possible based on empirical methods.