Prediction of the surface characteristic of 42CrMo after spot continual induction hardening based on a novel co-simulation method

Spot continual induction hardening (SCIH) is one kind of selective surface treatments, which has been proven to be appropriate for improving the tribological property and the fatigue behavior of specific areas of treated components. In our work, an electromagnetic-thermal-mechanical-metallurgical coupled numerical model was developed based on a novel co-simulation of ANSYS and ABAQUS/standard via making use of these two commercial finite element softwares' respective advantages to describe the SCIH process. The simulated results agreed well with experimental data in temperature development and the distributions of hardness, phase and residual stresses. The relationship between the inductor velocity and surface characteristics was discussed and the optimization of induction coil velocity was carried out based on the validated numerical model. •A novel numerical model was developed for SCIH process via co-simulation of two FEM softwares.•The proposed model can predict the distributions of hardness, phase and residual stresses after SCIH.•The beneficial residual stress distribution can be obtained via SCIH process with a relatively low velocity of inductor.