Study of heat transfer in the original design of electric heaters used for technological operations in the manufacturing of parts from VT6 alloy

Introduction. This paper examines the original design of a high-temperature tubular electric heater cartridge designed for heating industrial tooling used in the production of VT6 alloy parts. The process requires maintaining stable high temperatures exceeding 1000 °C. Without proper heat treatment after welding, cracks form in the components, which can lead to subsequent failure. This becomes especially critical when the structure of the weld and base metal is highly heterogeneous, ranging from nanoscale to coarse-grained. Furthermore, undesirable thermal effects on tooling components require additional costs for cooling and monitoring. The aim of the research is to evaluate the heat transfer of the original design of electric heaters used in the production of parts from VT6 alloy. Methods and Materials. The heat transfer study of the proposed heater design was performed using the finite element method in the Ansys software package, using the Transient Thermal calculation module. To validate the calculated values, a test rig was developed that reproduced the simulation results. A qualitative analysis of the temperature fields confirmed the hypothesis of uniform operation of the proposed heater design. Results and discussion. A quantitative analysis reflected the heating conditions of the VT6 alloy. The temperature modeling results at tooling control points were experimentally confirmed, ensuring that the target temperature of 1000 °C was achieved in a localized zone. The error was ± ≈ 70 °C. The microstructure of VT6 titanium alloy samples was examined in various zones after heat treatment. Conclusion. Based on the conducted research, recommendations are proposed for selecting optimal operating conditions for high-temperature tubular electric cartridge heaters of this design, and their potential applications are described.