INTERACTION EFFECT OF CARBURIZATION PROCESS ON HARDNESS PROPERTY OF AN A36 GRADE STEEL

Abstract

In engineering industries, pack carburization has been utilized to enhance the mechanical qualities of steel surface hardening. In this study, the response surface method was used to study the interaction effect on the pack carburization process parameters for surface hardness property on ASTM A36 low-carbon steel gear for drilling machine application. A total of 17 gears were machined from a long circular bar of A36 steel. Charcoal was used as a carburizer with sugar cane thrash as an energizer. The Box Behnken design was used to output the design of the experiment on a three factors and three-level setting. Pack carburization variables of carburization temperature, soaking time, and tempering temperature were varied on a constant tempering time of 2 hours and found to have the most interaction effect of soaking time and tempering temperature as output from the predicted mathematical model for hardness.