Influencing factors on cooling uniformity of large caliber seamless steel pipes during quenching

Based on current cooling methods commonly used to cool the outer surface by a low pressure pipe jet and the inner surface by a high pressure axial jet, numerical simulations with finite element software ANSYS were performed to study the temperature field of large-caliber seamless steel pipes during quenching. The considered factors are the diameter of steel pipes, the rotation speed of steel pipes and the wetting angle of cooling water. Numerical results reveal that pipe diameter has little influence on the cooling uniformity. The radial cooling uniformity of steel pipes is the best under the condition of the rotation speed of no less than 60 r·min^-1 and the wetting angle of about 270o.