Materials Today: Proceedings 45 (2021) 5511–5517

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Materials Today: Proceedings

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Experimental investigation of thermal properties of tool steel and mild

steel with heat treatment
Mohammad Asif ⇑, Mohd Atif Ahad, Md Faisal H. Iqbal, Shakir Reyaz
Mechanical Engineering Department, ZHCET, AMU, Aligarh 202002, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The determination of the thermal properties of materials like H13 tool steel and mild steel has received
Available online 9 March 2021 great attention due to their wide applications in industrial as well as in manufacturing sectors. Due to the
excellent resistance to softening, AISI H13 tool steel is widely used for higher temperature applications
Keywords: like cutting, forming and shaping the materials. The parameters that relate the interfacial heat transfer
Thermal contacts and interface temperature are thermal conductivity and thermal contact conductance (TCC) of the mate-
Thermal conductivity rials in contact. Thermal properties are affected by the heat treatment processes which are mainly
Thermal contact conductance
employed for the formation of tools and dies. Hence in his work, different heat treatment processes have
Tool steel
Heat treatment
been performed on the selected materials, viz. Tool steel (H13) and Mild steel. These materials have been
chosen for their extensive use in making tools, dies and other instruments. Microhardness of the mate-
rials has been compared with and without heat treatments. Further, heat transfer studies have been per-
formed in order to evaluate the thermal properties mainly thermal conductivity and thermal contact
conductance. Standard ASTM test methods have been employed for the estimation of thermal conductiv-
ity and TCC of the specimens. Experiments have been conducted for varying degree of loading and heat
flux in order to observe the effect of contact pressure and mean interface temperatures. Effect of heat
treatment has been observed on thermal conductivity of mild steel and tool steel and thermal contact
conductance of the tool steel-mild steel contacts. Moreover, the results have been presented in normal-
ized form and suitably compared with the existing literatures.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Second International Conference on Aspects of Materials Science and Engineering (ICAMSE 2021).

1. Introduction ment, etc. due to its specific characteristics such as high strength,
toughness and simple accessibility. AISI H13 tool steel has a com-
Tool steels are commonly used to make tools, moulds and dies prehensive usage in manufacturing processes. AISI H13 tool steel is
that can be used for the operations like cutting, forming or shaping used for more hot-work tooling applications than any other tool
the material into a part for component because of their high steel tool because of the magnificent blend of high strength and
strength and wear resistance [1]. There are various grades of tool resistance to thermal fatigue cracking [1–3]. Also, due to its high
steels, such as cold work tool steels, hot work tool steels as well toughness and excellent stability in heat treatment, it is used for
as high-speed tool steels. Hot work tool steels are commonly used various cold work tooling applications. AISI H13 tool steel also
at temperatures higher than 200 °C. They have the capability to has various other uses including extrusion dies, casting dies, cast
resist softening up to a temperature of 550 °C [2]. On the other mandrels, hot forging dies, punches, dies for blanking, bending,
hand, mild steel or low-carbon steel is the most common type of swaging, hot extrusion dies for aluminum, cores, ejector pins,
steel and is inexpensive building material due to its low quality. inserts and nozzles for aluminum etc. [1].
For applications from cars to construction materials, mild steel The study of the thermal properties using experimental proce-
has good strength, toughness and can be bent, worked or welded dure has great practical importance, as it reveals the range of tem-
into a wide range of shapes. It has a wide variety of uses for nut perature to which the materials can be subjected. The estimation of
bolts, chains, hinges, blades, armor, pipes, magnets, military equip- the thermal properties like thermal conductivity of the tool steel
specimens has been the main concern from the past few decades.
⇑ Corresponding author at: Mechanical Engineering Department, AMU, Aligarh, As the tool steel has a wide tooling application and is thus readily
UP-202002. subjected to high temperature, so knowing the variation of its con-
E-mail address: masif@zhcet.ac.in (M. Asif). ductivity is very important. To estimate the thermal conductivity

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.02.272
2214-7853/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Second International Conference on Aspects of Materials Science and Engineering (ICAMSE 2021).
M. Asif, Mohd Atif Ahad, Md Faisal H. Iqbal et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 45 (2021) 5511–5517

several techniques like analytical, numerical and experimental can tacts for different heat treatment processes and for a range of con-
be employed. For the better performance, it is very important to tact pressures and interface temperatures to study the influence of
determine the highest temperature of the tool under operation, heat treatment on various factors which affect thermal contact
which may be correlated with the thermal conductivity of the tool conductance.
material and the thermal contact conductance of the tool and sam-
ple metal interfaces. Thermal conductivity makes a significant con-
2. Experimentation
tribution to thermal fatigue and has been recognized as an
important parameter for the life of the instrument [2]. Alaa [4]
Experimental set-up is essentially an axial heat apparatus to
focused his study on grey cast iron which is an automotive brake
perform experiment under varying heating and loading conditions.
rotor material. He investigated the effect of heat treatment on
All the experiments have been performed under atmospheric con-
the thermal conductivity and mechanical properties such as tensile
ditions to simulate actual working conditions.
strength, percentage elongation using three types of heat treat-
ments, i.e. annealing, normalizing, Tempering plus quenching.
Zhang and Gao [5] have examined the influence of heat treatment 2.1. Experimental Set-up
and the mechanism of heat treatment on the thermal conductivity
of the 6063 aluminium alloy. Wilzer et al. [6] carried out studies on The two samples of Tool steel and Mild steel are placed in direct
the thermal conductivity of tool steel at room temperature with contact. A heating block is placed at the top of Tool steel and a cool-
alloy composition and heat treatment employing quenching and ing block at the bottom of Mild steel specimen so as to set up
different modes of tempering. In another study, Wilzer et al. [7] downward heat flow from Tool steel to Mild steel block. Heating
worked on three different alloys of Tool steel, viz. C45, block is made of copper in which Nichrome wire resistance heating
40CrMnMo7, and X42C13 to study the effect of isobaric heat capac- element of 150 W are wrapped in coil form. Heating system is con-
ity and thermal conductivity at room temperature with heat treat- nected to a precise and stable PID controller to vary input heat flux
ment. Cingi et al. [8] analyzed the effect of thermal treatment on so as to perform the experiments at different temperature condi-
the thermal conductivity of aluminum alloys by varying heat treat- tions. Cooling system consists of a cooling block of copper in which
ment temperatures. Due to heat treatment, a significant improve- chilled water is circulated from a PID controlled chiller. The insula-
ment in thermal conductivity has been reported. Hafenstein et al. tion blocks (IsomagÒ 175) of magnesium silicate are kept at the
[9] evaluated the effect of heat treatment on the thermal conduc- zenith of heating block and at the underneath of cooling block, to
tivity of two different hot working tool steels in the 20–500 °C maintain one dimensional heat transfer and to minimize radial
temperature range. In addition, Sridhar and Yovanovich [10] inves- heat losses. All interfaces excluding the specimens’ interface have
tigated the effect of heat treatment on the TCC of tool steel in the been coated with a very conductive silicon thermal paste to reduce
73–121 °C temperature range. The authors showed that the defor- the interfacial thermal resistance and to enhance the heat transfer.
mation of untreated tool steel samples was elastoplastic, while the The loading has been varied by fitting a hydraulic jack below the
deformation of the samples after heat treatment was fully elastic. cooling block and connected with a calibrated digital load cell.
Abdul Hay et al. [11] estimated thermal contact resistance for The temperatures are recorded at different axial locations in both
blank-tool contacts in the pressure range of 5–30 MPa. Jam and the specimens using K-type thermocouples of 0.1 mm wire diam-
Fard [12] worked on an inverse based methodology to find out eter, with 2.5 mm sheath diameter. The thermocouples are
TCC for tool-chip contact using the finite element analysis and mounted in both the specimens up to the centerline. The temper-
the experimental results from the literature. Courban et al. [13] ature data has been logged by using a National Instrument NI
studied tool-chip thermal interaction during steel cutting. The cDAQ-9178 data acquisition chassis with a NI-9213 module for
tests were carried out on steel bars with varying cutting speeds thermocouple interfacing. Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram and
and feed rates. Norouzifard and Hamedi [14] worked on inverse a photographic view of the complete experimental facility.
methodology to estimate TCC for the tool-chip contacts during First of all the, experiments are performed to estimate the ther-
machining process. Infra-red thermography was used to estimate mal conductivity of the specimens. Here, the specimen is placed in
the average chip temperature near the tool-chip interface. AISI between two stainless steel (304 grade) blocks of known conduc-
1045, AISI 304 and Titanium materials were employed in the tivity and axial temperature data in the specimen and SS blocks
experiments. Tariq and Asif [15] experimentally studied the TCC have been measured upto the steady state. The experiments are
for SS304, brass and copper contacts in the range of 0.6–15 MPa, carried out for varying degree of heat flux in order to observe the
while the interfacial temperature range was 30–100 °C. Further, effect of temperature on thermal conductivity. The similar experi-
Asif and Tariq [16] employed dimensional analysis based on Pi ment has been performed for all set of treated and untreated
Buckingham theorem to establish a general correlation and differ- specimens.
ent particular correlations for thermal contact conductance for a In the second phase of experiments, the specimen pairs consti-
wide range of parameters in vacuum environment. tute nominally flat contacts joining together to examine the Ther-
In tooling applications, H13 tool steel is mostly used for the mal contact conductance (TCC) of the specimen pairs. The required
shaping and forming of the job materials made of mild steel, so loading has been applied by using hydraulic jack and measured by
it is necessary to know the contact conductance of these mating load cell. The temperatures at different axial locations of speci-
materials, for setting up the optimum temperature conditions in mens are recorded upto the steady state. Consequently, the loading
order to get a better surface finish of the job material and a longer has been increased to next level and again the experiment is
tool life. The desired properties of these materials have been esti- repeated in the same way up to the steady state. The similar prac-
mated here by using the experimental technique. Here, to evaluate tice has been repeated for all set of experiments using treated and
the thermal conductivity of H13 tool steel specimens, the axial untreated specimens.
heat flow technique was used. The main aim of this work is to
study the thermal conductivity of the H13 tool steel and to deter- 2.2. Specimen preparation and heat treatment
mine the thermal contact conductance between the tool steel and
the mild-steel interface. Axial heat flow studies have also been The specimens are cut in cylindrical blocks of diameter 25 and
conducted to find out the thermal conductivity of the specimens. length 30 mm. The upper specimen is made of Tool steel (TS) of
Subsequently, experiments have been carried out on TS-MS con- Grade H13 while, lower specimen is made of Mild steel (MS). Con-
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M. Asif, Mohd Atif Ahad, Md Faisal H. Iqbal et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 45 (2021) 5511–5517

Fig. 1. (a) Schematic diagram; (b) photographic view of the experimental setup.

sequently, special process like EDM has been employed in order to (Mitutoyo: SJ410). The values of the RMS roughness ‘Rq’ and mean
create fine holes of 12.5 mm deep and 2 mm in diameter at differ- arithmetic average slope ‘m’ of all the treated and untreated spec-
ent axial locations for inserting the thermocouples. Thereafter, the imen surfaces are shown in Table 1.
specimens of tool steel and Mild steel have been undergone the fol- Further, in order to observe the effect of heat treatment on the
lowing heat treatment processes: mechanical properties of specimen, the Microhardness (Vicker’s)
Normalizing: The normalizing heat treatment includes heating has been carefully evaluated for all the treated and untreated spec-
slowly and cautiously to the normalizing temperature and holding imens of Mild steel and Tool steel. An Optical Vickers hardness
at a temperature sufficient to permit homogenization and then air testing machine (VM 50) has been employed for the measurement
cooling to room temperature. In order to perform normalizing heat of Vicker’s hardness of the specimen surfaces. The details of Vick-
treatment, the specimens of tool steel and Mild steel have been er’s hardness for all the specimens are shown in Fig. 2.
heated in an electric furnace above 900 °C for 2 h and then cooled
in still air.
Annealing: The annealing heat treatment process involves heat-
ing the steel slowly and uniformly to a temperature above the
upper critical temperature and holding until the completion of
austenitisation and homogenization. For annealing heat treatment,
the specimens of tool steel and Mild steel have been heated in an 3. Data analysis
electric furnace upto 900 °C for 2 h and then cooled in the furnace.
The surfaces of all the specimens (untreated and treated) are First of all, the thermal conductivity of the specimens has been
fine polished with different grade of emery papers. In order to evaluated with temperature and then TCC of the specimen pairs
characterize the specimen surfaces, the RMS roughness ‘Rq’ and has been estimated with varying contact pressure and interface
mean arithmetic average slope ‘m’ of the asperities of all the test temperature.
surfaces has been accomplished by using Stylus based profilometer

Table 1
RMS roughness ‘Rq’ and mean arithmetic average slope ‘m’ of the specimen surfaces.

Material RMS roughness ‘Rq’, Mean arithmetic average

mm slope ‘m’
Mild Untreated 0.231520 0.027800
Steel Normalized 0.10460 0.01740
Annealed 0.190000 0.024800
Tool Untreated 0.19900 0.03320
Steel Normalized 0.14040 0.0266
Annealed 0.39360 0.03100
Fig. 2. Micro hardness of Mild steel and Tool steel for various heat treatments.

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3.1. Estimation of thermal conductivity 4. Results and discussion

Thermal conductivity of the treated and untreated material of 4.1. Variation of micro hardness
both the specimens i.e. Tool steel and Mild steel has been esti-
mated by using a standard method, comparative cut bar technique The variation of Microhardness (Vicker’s hardness) for the trea-
for axial heat flow thermal conductivity test ASTM E1225 [17]. ted and untreated specimens of Mild steel and Tool steel (H-13)
Stainless steel (3 0 4) has been used as a standard material with has been shown in Fig. 2. It is evident from the figure that
known thermal conductivity as a function of temperature as: k untreated Tool steel has about 1.7 times harder than Mild steel.
(t) = 10.67 + 0.0159 T, where ‘T’ is in Kelvin [18].Therefore, the ther- Further, it is observed from Fig. 2 that microhardenss of Mild steel
mal conductivity of the treated and untreated specimens of TS and is reduced by 8% and 11.6% after annealing and normalizing
MS has been estimated using the steady state temperature distri- respectively. Furthermore, it is evident from Fig. 2 that microhard-
bution in the specimen and stainless steel blocks by using the enss of Tool steel is almost same (0.5% change) after annealing
Fourier’s law of conduction. while it becomes almost 2.4 times after normalizing. This variation
of microhardness may be linked to the change in microstructure
with the heat treatment of the material.

3.2. Estimation of thermal contact conductance (TCC)

4.2. Variation of thermal conductivity
Thermal contact conductance has been estimated by employing
steady state approach. The steady-state methodology is referred to The variation of thermal conductivity for the treated and
be a simple, easy and well validated approach for the estimation of untreated specimens of TS and MS has been shown in Fig. 3. From
Thermal contact conductance. In this approach, transient tempera- Fig. 3, it has been resulted that the thermal conductivity of
ture data in both the specimens at different axial locations at untreated and treated Tool steel follow the same trend, given by
steady state are utilized. Further, interfacial heat flux at steady equation as: k(t) = 31.1 + 0.051 t. Similar range of thermal conduc-
state 0 q1 0 and0 q2 0 in specimen 1 and specimen 2 respectively has tivity has been reported for Tool Steel in [7,10]. Similarly, thermal
been estimated by using Fourier’s law of conduction in both the conductivity of untreated Mild steel and normalized Mild steel are
specimens. Furthermore, temperature drop at the interface 0 DT 0 obeying the same equation as: k(t) = 60.18–0.037 t. On the other
of the specimens is calculated by using linear extrapolation of hand, thermal conductivity of annealed Mild steel has been found
the steady state temperatures in both the specimens. Conse- to follow a different equation of thermal conductivity as: k(t) = 56.
quently, TCC has been calculated by using the following equation: 88–0.043 t. Further from the Fig. 3, it has been observed that the
Thermal contact conductance, TCC ¼ qDaTv ; variation of thermal conductivity with temperature in the range
where qav is the average heat flux: qav ¼ ðq1 þq
2
2Þ
:.and 0 DT 0 is the of 50–110 °C is 4–6% for Mild steel while variation is 8–11% for
temperature drop at the interface. Tool steel. Furthermore from Fig. 3, it may be noted that there is
less variation in thermal conductivity after normalizing (2–4%)
and annealing of Tool steel (0.5–3%). On the other hand, thermal
conductivity of Mild steel is reduced by 6–8% after annealing while
3.3. Normalization of TCC % change due to normalizing is 2–4%. Overall, it may be concluded
that thermal conductivity is the weak function of temperature for
Thermal contact conductance is influenced by many thermo the untreated and treated specimen contacts in the present range
mechanical and geometric parameters which are correlated to each of temperatures (30–110 °C).
other. Therefore, it is essential to study the combined effect of
these factors on Thermal contact conductance (TCC). The common
method is to normalize the thermal contact conductance and con- 4.3. Variation of thermal contact conductance
tact pressure in terms of these parameters. The most common nor-
malization procedure as reported in pertinent literatures The effect of various parameters such contact pressure, mean
[15,16,19,20] is discussed below. interface temperature, microhardness, roughness, on TCC indepen-

Thermal contact conductance is normalized as: h ¼ hRq mk
;where dently and also combined effect has been discussed in the upcom-
‘Rq’ is the effective root mean square roughness, ‘m’ refers to the ing subsections.
effective average asperity slope and ‘k’ is harmonic mean of ther-
mal conductivities of both specimens.
On the other hand, the contact pressure is normalized as: P p = HP ;
pffiffi
for plastic models and Pe ¼ P 0 2 ; for elastic models ; where ‘P’ is
E m
the apparent contact pressure calculated on the basis of apparent
contact area, ‘H’ is the Vicker’s hardness of the softer material of
0
the specimen pair and E is reduced modulus of elasticity of the
specimens’ material.
Normalized results have been compared with the selected plas-
tic and elastic based theoretical models, which are as follows:

Plastic Models:h ¼ 1:25ðP p Þ0:95 : Yovanovich model [19];
   0:95
h ¼ 1:13ðP p Þ0:94 : Mikic model [20]; h ¼ 0:9 Pp : Asif and
Tariq Corrl. [16].

Elastic Models:h ¼ 0:79ðPp Þ0:98 : BGT Elastic model [21];
 0:94 
h ¼ 1:55ðP e Þ : Mikic Elastic model [20]; h ¼ 1:87ðPe Þ0:98 : GW
model [22]. Fig. 3. Thermal conductivity of Mild steel and Tool steel with temperature.

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M. Asif, Mohd Atif Ahad, Md Faisal H. Iqbal et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 45 (2021) 5511–5517

range of 1–10 MPa. However, it is observed that rate of rise of TCC

with contact pressure is highest in normalized specimen pair
(216% rise) and lowest in untreated specimen pair (116% rise)
while variation in annealed pair lies in the middle (154% rise) for
the present range of contact pressure. Indeed, this variation of
TCC is the combined effect of various thermo-mechanical proper-
ties such as thermal conductivity, microhardness, and yield
strength of the materials which are observed to change with heat
treatments (Figs. 2 and 3) and also reported in the literatures [4–
10]. Further, there is variation of effective RMS roughness and
average slope of the specimen surfaces (Table 1) which also affect
the values of TCC as reported in [10,15,19]. Therefore, combined
effect of all the parameters should be presented to get the correct
comparison of TCC for all the test conditions.

4.3.2. Effect of mean interface temperature

In order to study the effect of mean interface temperatures on
TCC the results have been estimated by varying the input heat flow
rate to the specimen pair in contact while maintaining the inter-
face pressure as constant (=10 MPa). Fig. 6 shows the variation of
Fig. 4. Interfacial temperature drop with Contact pressure. TCC with mean interface temperature. From Fig. 6, it is observed
that TCC increases with mean interface temperature for treated
and untreated contacts. However, variation of TCC with average
4.3.1. Effect of contact pressure interface temperature is 28% for untreated specimen pairs while
TCC has been estimated for treated (Annealed and Normalized) variation is 13.7% and 14.5% for normalized and annealed specimen
and untreated Tool steel-Mild steel specimen pairs with four con- pairs for the present range of temperatures (Fig. 6). Actually, TCC is
tact pressures ranging from 1 to 10 MPa while keeping input heat the combined effect of temperature drop and heat flux at the inter-
flux as constant so as to keep average interface temperature as face. Further, it is observed that change of heat flux is higher for
almost constant (~50 °C). Fig. 4 shows the variation of interfacial untreated specimen pairs due to higher rate of change of thermal
temperature drop with contact pressure. From the figure, it has conductivity and lower hardness values (Figs. 2-3). Therefore, per-
been observed that interfacial temperature drop reduces with the centage change of TCC is higher for untreated specimen pairs.
contact pressure for treated and untreated specimen pairs. How- Moreover, the variation of thermo-mechanical properties of mate-
ever, the range of temperature drop at the interface is 11–22 °C rials of the specimen pair in contact are found less in the present
for normalized pairs and 10–18 °C for annealed pairs while it is range of temperature (30–110 °C) as shown in Fig. 3, and also
7–10 °C for untreated specimen pairs. reported in pertinent literatures [10,15]. Hence, TCC is found to
The effect of interfacial temperature drop is also visible in the be a weak function of temperature.
variation of TCC with contact pressure in Fig. 5. From Fig. 5, it
may be observed that TCC increases with contact pressure for trea-
ted and untreated specimens. This is due to deformation of micro 4.3.3. Normalized results
asperities with pressure in the contact region thereby causing It is evident from the previous discussion that the actual com-
enhanced contact area leading to increase in TCC. Further, it has parison of TCC for various test conditions and heat treatments is
been noted from Fig. 5 that untreated sample pair has highest val- only possible in the normalized form combining all parameters,
ues of TCC, and normalized pair has lowest values while results for as depicted in Section 3.3. Therefore, normalized results of TCC
annealed pair lie closer to normalized ones for the similar pressure have been presented with normalized pressure for treated and

Fig. 5. Variation of TCC with Contact pressure. Fig. 6. Variation of TCC with Mean Interface temperature.

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M. Asif, Mohd Atif Ahad, Md Faisal H. Iqbal et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 45 (2021) 5511–5517

Fig. 9. Comparison of Normalized TCC with Elastic models for untreated specimen
pairs.
Fig. 7. Normalized TCC with Normalized Pressure.

ison of results with elastic based models. From Fig. 9, it is evident

untreated specimen pairs in Fig. 7. It is observed from Fig. 7 that
that there is considerable agreement of the experimental results
annealed specimen contact has highest TCC values but closer to
for untreated and annealed contacts with BGT elastic model except
the untreated contact pair. This is due to closer values of thermal
for lowest load. On the other hand TCC values for normalized heat
conductivity and micro hardness for untreated and annealed pairs
treated contacts lie lower than the elastic model due to very high
of Mild Steel and Tool Steel (Figs. 2-3). On the other hand, Normal-
microhardness value. Hence from the results, it may be resulted
ized heat treated Tool steel has very high value of microhardness
that the deformation is more likely to be elastic rather than plastic
which will cause lesser deformations under the similar pressure
for TS-MS contacts in the present range of loads. Similar results
range and thereby lower TCC values. Hence, these results present
have been reported for Tool steel contacts [10]. It may be due to
the correct comparison of TCC for the three types of contact pairs.
the change of mechanical properties of the tool steel and mild steel
with the heat treatment. It may be noted that effect of temperature
4.3.4. Comparison with existing literature is not included in the normalization of TCC because it has been
Although, similar experimental set up and methodology has resulted earlier that TCC is a weak function of temperature for
been adopted by various researchers but for different materials the present range of temperatures (50–110 °C). Further, TCC has
and test conditions as reported in [10,15,16]. Therefore, normal- found to be a strong function of contact pressure but depending
ized results of present study have been compared with the existing upon type of deformation for a particular metal pairs.
literatures. First of all, the normalized results of TCC have been
compared with existing theoretical models based on plastic defor- 4.3.5. Limitations of the study
mation and an experimental correlation (Fig. 8). From Fig. 8, it has This study is based on the steady state method for the estima-
been observed that experimental results for both treated and tion of thermal conductivity and thermal contact conductance
untreated specimen contacts do not agree with the plastic based which a well-known and reliable technique. But it has certain lim-
models except at lowest load. Further, Fig. 9 presents the compar- itations, one and the foremost is that it requires long waiting per-
iod to achieve steady state. Further, it involves the calculation of
heat flux and temperature gradient in the specimens. Therefore,
errors are included in the calculation of heat flux due to heat losses.
On the other hand, temperature measurement by thermocouples is
a non invasive method which also includes a lot of errors.
Moreover, the correct estimation of TCC depends on correct
evaluation of thermal conductivity with temperature hence errors
are added up in the estimation of TCC. Therefore, transient meth-
ods for estimating thermal conductivity and TCC with invasive
temperature measurement like Infrared thermography, Liquid
Crystal thermography etc are seeking attention nowadays in this
field of investigation. Therefore, the present methodology based
on steady state approach has certain relative merits and limitations
as compared to transient techniques.

5. Conclusions and scopes of future work

The present work aims towards the estimation of thermal con-

ductivity and thermal contact conductance under different test
conditions of tool-sample contacts for various heat treatment pro-
Fig. 8. Comparison of Normalized TCC with Plastic models for untreated specimen cesses. The thermal conductivity for the treated and untreated
pairs. specimens of Tool steel and Mild steel has been found to be a weak
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M. Asif, Mohd Atif Ahad, Md Faisal H. Iqbal et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 45 (2021) 5511–5517

function of temperature for the present range of temperature. Fur- Data curation, Writing - review & editing. Shakir Reyaz:
ther, effect of heat treatment is not found prominent on thermal Supervision.
conductivity except for annealing of Mild steel specimen. It has
been resulted that annealing reduced the thermal conductivity of Declaration of Competing Interest
mild steel by 6–8 % in the present range of temperatures.
Further, it has been observed that TCC is increasing with applied The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
loading for all the contact pairs. It has been found that percentage cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
rise of TCC with contact pressure is highest in normalized heat to influence the work reported in this paper.
treated specimen pair (216% rise) and lowest in untreated speci-
men pair (116% rise) while variation of TCC in annealed pair lie References
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[13] C. Courbon, T. Mabrouki, J. Rech, D. Mazuyer, E. D’Eramo, App. Thermal Engg.
dies and similar machine components which are extensively used
50 (1) (2013) 1311–1325.
in machining and metal forming processes. Hence, the future work [14] V. Norouzifard, M. Hamedi, Int. J. Mach. tools Manuf. 84 (2014) 45–57.
should be focussed towards the study of TCC for other metal pairs [15] A. Tariq, M. Asif, Heat Mass Transf. 52 (2015) 291–307.
such as, High speed steel, Aluminium alloys etc. Further, study on [16] M. Asif, A. Tariq, Exp. Heat Transf. 29 (2016) 1–29.
[17] ASTM E1225-13, Standard Test Method for Thermal Conductivity of Solids
TCC should be carried out for other heat treatment processes like Using the Guarded-Comparative-Longitudinal Heat Flow Technique, ASTM
strain hardening, quenching, tempering etc. In addition, the study International, West Conshohocken, PA, (2013).
of microstructure of the surfaces should be added in the work to [18] G.R. McGee, M.H. Schankula, M.M. Yovanovich, Nucl. Engg. Design. 86 (1985)
369–381.
better understand the processes. [19] M.M. Yovanovich, AIAA 16th Thermophys. Conf. California (1981) 1–6.
[20] B.B. Mikic, Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 17 (1974) 205–214.
[21] A.W. Bush, R.D. Gibson, T.R. Thomas, Wear 35 (1975) 87–111.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
[22] J.A. Greenwood, J.B.P. Williamson, Int. Proc. Royal Society. A 295 (1966) 300–
319.
Mohammad Asif: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing -
original draft. Mohd Atif Ahad: Investigation. Md Faisal H. Iqbal:

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