Abstract

The heating and cooling curves during "batch" annealing process of low carbon steels have been modeled using the finite element technique. This has allowed to predict the transient thermal profile for every point of the annealed coils, particularly for the hottest and coldest ones. Through experimental measurements, the results have been adequately validated since a good agreement has been found between experimental values and those predicted by the model. Moreover, an Avrami recristalization model has been coupled to this thermal balance computation. Interrupted annealing experiments have been made by measuring the recristalized fraction on the extreme points of the coil for different times. These data gave the possibility to validate the developed recristalization model through a reasonably good numerical-experimental fitting.