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Procedia CIRP 7 (2013) 646 – 651

Forty Sixth CIRP Conference on Manufacturing Systems 2013

A study on the heating process for forging of an automotive

crankshaft in terms of energy efficiency
Hong-Seok Park*, Xuan-Phuong Dang
Lab for Production Engineering, School of Mechanical and Automotive engineering, University of Ulsan, San 29, Mugeo 2-Dong, Namgu, Ulsan,
P.O. Box 18, Ulsan 680-749, South Korea
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +82-052-259-2294; fax: +82-052-259-1680. E-mail address: phosk@ulsan.ac.kr.

Abstract

This work studies the in-line induction heating process before hot forging of an automotive crankshaft to find the potential solutions
for improving the energy efficiency. We optimized the process parameters and proposed an insulating system to reduce the
radiation and convection losses at the open spaces between adjacent heaters. The results obtained from the analytical model of the
heat transfer show that using insulating covers can roughly reduce 9% of heat losses compared to the energy stored in the
workpiece. Approximately additional 6% of energy can be saved by process parameters optimization.

© 2013
© 2013The
TheAuthors.
Authors. Published
Published by Elsevier
by Elsevier B.V.B.V.
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selectionand
Selection and/or peer-review
peer-review underunder responsibility
responsibility of Professor
of Professor Pedro
Pedro Filipe do Filipe
Carmo do Carmo Cunha
Cunha

Keywords: Optimization; Manufacturing; Forging; Heat treatment

Similar to other manufacturing technologies, energy-

1. Introduction
The manufacturing community is trying to reduce the
energy consumption due to the energy cost problem,
ecological and environmental policies. Increasing the
energy efficiency of the manufacturing process is best
way to resolve these issues and strengthen the
competition of manufactures. The methods for energy
efficiency at the production or factory level in many
manufacturing aspects are being intensive studied. The
state of the art of energy efficiency in laser based
manufacturing processes, machining, machine tools and
manufacturing system can be found in the literature [1].
For hot forging industry, induction heating process
has been considered as a high productivity, repeatable
quality, and green heating technology compared to fuel-
fired furnaces. This is the reason that induction heating,
a best available heating technology, is preferred in
forging manufacturing [2-3]. Induction heating before
hot forging requires a huge amount of electrical energy
for heating a steel workpiece with a large volume from
the ambient temperature to approximate 1150 1250 C.
Therefore, the increase in the thermal efficiency of the
heating system significantly saves the consumed energy.
saving solutions for induction heating are important
issues that the manufacturers and researchers always pay
their attention. Solutions for saving energy for industrial
induction heating may include the energy management,
innovative components of induction devices, energy
recovery, and adaptive control [4]. One effective way to
resolve the energy-savings problem in induction heating
is carrying out the optimization process through
parameters study. Diverse published works devoted to
optimization of induction heating [5-11], but most of
them focus on how to minimize the temperature
deviation at the end of the heating process.
This work studies the in-line induction heating
process before hot forging of an automotive crankshaft
in order to find the potential solutions for improving the
energy efficiency. The inappropriate characteristic of the
of the current in-line induction heating systems is the
heat losses caused by radiation and convection between
heaters. Therefore, we proposed an insulating system to
reduce theses thermal losses. In addition, when the
thermal efficiency is increased as well as the throughput
is changed, the reconfiguration of the heating process
parameters is necessary. A new heating strategy was also
proposed for higher heating flexibility and better thermal

2212-8271 © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Professor Pedro Filipe do Carmo Cunha
doi:10.1016/j.procir.2013.06.047
 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia CIRP 7 (2013) 646 – 651 647

efficiency. This works also addresses the issues that are The total rate of heat loss from the surface of the hot
and power workpiece is
distribution along the heating line, a controversial
problem which is rarely discussed in the literature [12]. q1 q1 conv q1 rad (1)

2. Analyze the heat losses of the in-line induction where q1 con and q1 rad are the heat losses caused by
heating system for crankshaft forging convection and radiation, respectively. q1 is the heat
flux per unit length tha transfers from the outmost of the
The manufacturing line of an 4-cylinder automotive insulating cover to the ambient air (natural convection in
crankshaft is depicted in Fig. 1. The induction heating the infinite space).
step is the one that consumes a great amount of energy
compared to other stages in the forging process. It is also q1 conv dw (t1 t ) 1 Nu(t1 t ) (2)
the first important step in the manufacturing process.
where , , dw, t1, t are the heat-transfer coefficient,
thermal conduction, diameter of the workpiece, surface
temperature of the workpiece, and ambient temperature,
respectively.

1Nu (3)
(a)
d

and Nu is calculated by the formulas [13]

0.518(Gr Pr)1/4 (4)

Raw material Induction heating Cutting
Nu 0.36
[1 (0.559 / Pr)9/16 ]4/9

The Grashof number is calculated as:

g (t1 t )d 3 (5)
Gr 2

(b) Forging Handling Cooling

Fig. 1. (a) An automotive crankshaft; (b) the manufacturing process where 1 and t1 t is the mean film
tf
tf 2
The in-line induction system which consists of seven temperature
heaters for heating a long steel bar with a diameter of
97-mm is shown in Fig. 2(a). The steel bar moves The thermal properties of air are assumed constant
continuously through the in-line heaters with a and are taken to be the values at the mean film
designated velocity that is equivalent to the cycle time temperature
before going to the forging step. The heat loss caused by radiation is calculated as

812 0 C 8890 C 9500 C 10300 C 11600 C 12000 C 12200 C

q1 rad d1 (T14 T 4 ) (6)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 1
In the in-line induction heating, because the induction
heaters are connected one by one and there are open
Heater 2 Heater 3 Heater 4 Heater 5 Heater 6 Heater 7 spaces between adjacent heaters due to the existence of
the rollers (see Fig. 2(a)), the losses caused by radiation
(a) 20.0 and convection are remarkable. We carried out the
18.0 Total thermal losses at open spaces: 60.8 kW 17.1

16.0
(Accounts for 6.9% of engergy stored in the workpiece) investigation into the real induction system and found
Thermal losses (kW)

14.0
14.1
that the heat losses caused by convection and radiation at
12.0 11.0 the open spaces where the heated billet exposes to the
10.0
8.0
8.0 ambient air account for a significant amount of energy.
6.0 4.3
5.8 Figure 2(b) shows the thermal losses of a induction
4.0 heating line with the rating power of 4250 kW and 850
2.0
0.0
0.5 kW of effective power (the energy needed to heat the
(b) Position Position Position Position Position Position Position workpiece per cycle time). The heat losses account for
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Fig. 2. (a) The in-line induction heating with seven heaters; (b) the heat approximate 6.9% of the energy stored in the workpiece.
losses at the open spaces between adjacent heaters It is clear that the reduction of this kind of losses can
648 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia CIRP 7 (2013) 646 – 651

save the energy effectively. Therefore, the insulating

solution was proposed to reduce the heat losses. In this
work, the energy efficiency is defined as the ratio
counted by % of the heat energy stored in the workpiece
and the input electric energy to the heaters when
simulating. The electrical efficiency of the power supply
is temporarily ignored due to the scope of the study.
e
t1 2
3. Development of the insulating covers to reduce Ambien
nt air

line
ne
heat losses for the in-line induction heating system t2

n
3

ricaal li
Steel q
To reduce the heat losses at the open spaces, where

m ettri
billet
et a
air
the extreme hot billet (from approximate 800 ~ 1220 C) t3 t4

Symm
Symm

air
directly exposes to the ambient air, we proposed the

Sy

ceramic
insulating covers as shown in Fig. 3. Due to the high t
temperature of the billet, the special materials (ceramic
brick and super wool) that can withstand this
temperature were selected. These materials have a good r
manufacturability that can be machined or formed into 1
Stainless steel
d1 2
the required shape. cover
The insulating device is consider as the multi-layer d2
cylindrical wall including an annulus cylindrical air gap, d3
a ceramic tube, and a thin stainless steel cover. In fact, d4
there is an open space at the bottom of the insulating
cover (see Fig. 3); however, this area accounts for a Fig. 4. Schematic axisymmetric layout of the insulating cover
small portion. Consequently, this open area is ignored
and the insulating device is treated as a perfect where q12, q244, and q4 are the heat flux per unit length
cylindrical walls. The schematic axisymmetric layout of (W/m) transfers through the air-gap 1, through the
the insulating cover is illustrated in Fig. 4. ceramic and stainless cover, and from the outmost of the
The governing equation for determining the heat insulating cover to the ambient air.
transfer rate and the temperature is the law of energy
balance. The heat transfer through the cylindrical layers
must be conservative. q4 4 Nu(t4 t ) d1 (t44 t 4 ) (8)

q12 q24 (7) 2 d1 t14 t2 4 (9)

e
q12 (1 2)
q24 q4 d 1 d1 1
ln 2 1
d1 1 d2 2

812 0 C 8890 C 9500 C 10300 C 11600 C 12000 C 12200 C t2 t4 (10)

q24
1 d3 1 d
ln ln 4
Heater 2 Heater 3 Heater 4 Heater 5 H
Heater 6 Heater 7
H 2 2 d 2 2 3 d3

All of the components in the system of Eq. (7) can be

calculated by the analytical heat transfer equations.
Assuming that the thicknesses of the insulating layers
Induction heater
Heated are predetermined, the system of two equations (7) can
billet
Metallic be used to determine the temperature t2 and t4. Whenever
cover
t2 or t4 is known, the rate of heat transfer (rate of heat
Insulating Supporting roller
ceramic tube losses) is obtained. Then, we can compare the heat
Support
losses for the case of with and without insulating cover.
plates For each value of the thickness 1 and 2, the
temperature t2 and t4 has a certain value. As the result,
the value of heat transfer rate also changes if 1 and 2
Fig. 3. The proposed thermal insulating covers in the in-line induction vary. Therefore, we can find the optimum value of 1
heating system and 2 that minimize the heat losses through the cover.
 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia CIRP 7 (2013) 646 – 651 649

The optimization problem is minimize the heat AC

transferred through the insulating cover to reduce the
heat losses within some constraints of the design space Coil (finite element C
of the input parameters. The problem is stated as: R domain)
- Minimize the rate of heat transfer:
L
q4 4 Nu(t4 t ) d1 (t44 t 4 ) (11) air coil water air

- Subject to:
Side constraints)

pitch
Coil
1 0.07 and 2 0.08
Inequality constraint
Refractory Finite element
t2 billet (insulation) domain
Equality constraints
q12 = q24 and q24 = q4 Fig. 5. Circuit-coupled FEM model of induction heating simulation
In this optimization problem, it is noted that the
objective function also be treated as a constraint due to sufficient when modeling an induction heating system
the system of Eq. (7). The input parameters (design with a classical solenoidal inductor. Because the input of
variables) are 1 , 2, and t2. These parameters change
within their constraints during the optimization process. meanwhile the induction heaters are fed by voltage
The results of the design and optimization of the supplies, the circuit-coupled FEM model was employed
insulating covers are presented in the results and as shown in Fig. 5 to calculate the current density.
discussion section. Flexible manufacturing requires the induction heating
systems to have an ability of adapting to the change of
4. Optimization of the process parameters of the in- the throughput while keeping the reasonable energy
line induction heating efficiency. In addition, the energy efficiency depends on
the heating pattern along the heating line. Therefore, the
For induction heating, the temperature profile of the heaters are divided into three groups that are fed by
heated workpiece and energy consumption are independent power supplies as shown in Fig. 6. The
complicated functions of current density, frequency,
material properties, coil design, the coupling between temperature; the group 2 is responsible for heating above
coils and workpiece, and the characteristic of the power
supply. In this work, we did not focus on improving the remaining portion of energy to heat the billet to the
hardware or equipment such as power supplies, target temperature. All the groups of heaters are fed the
inverters, or induction coils that were made by the same voltage but different frequencies. The frequencies
induction heater manufacturer. Instead, the optimum f1 and f2 of group 1 and 2 are parametrical studied, and
voltages and frequencies, which are the changeable the frequency f3 is estimated by our developed algorithm
process parameters of the heating system, must be because the target temperature must be reached at the
figured out by a scientific approach and elaborated end of the heating line.
studied rather than practice or experience.
Induction heating is a complex electromagnetic and Group 1 (U, f1) Group 2 (U, f2) Group 3 (U, f3)
heat transfer process because of the temperature
dependency of electromagnetic, electrical, and thermal
properties of material as well as skin effect. Therefore, 1400
Heater Heater Heater Heater Heater Heater Heater
the exact analysis method is very difficult to implement. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1200
Thus, general-purpose FEM was employed to analyze
and simulate the induction heating process. The
Temperature (°C)

1000 Target
theoretical background of the mathematical and temperature
800 1
numerical modeling of electromagnetic field governed 600
2
3
400
presented in the literature [5, 14-16] so that it is Center (3) Surface (1) Average (2)
200
unnecessary to duplicate in this paper. Initial
temperature
The FEM-based model of the induction heating 0
0 100 Length of the
200induction heating
300 line 400 500
process was developed using ANSYS Parametric Design Time (s)
Language. To reduce the computational time, only one Fig. 6. Heating strategy that divides the heaters into three groups fed
turn of the coil is considered. This simplification is by independent power supplies
650 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia CIRP 7 (2013) 646 – 651

Full factorial design matrix was applied for parameter Table 1. The heat losses for the case without insulating cover
studies. Three process parameters were chosen including
voltage U, frequency f1, frequency f2. Each parameter Position t1 ( C) q conv (W/m) q rad (W/m) q sum (W/m)
(factor) is divided into three levels, so there are 3 3 = 27 7 1220 4571 55785 60356
experiments. Initial and final temperatures of the 6 1200 4488 52851 57339
workpiece are 25 C and 1220 C, respectively. The
5 1160 4322 47330 51653
emissivity or coefficient of radiation is selected as 0.75,
and the ambient air temperature is 25 C. The billet 4 1030 3786 32326 36113
moves with a speed of 460 mm per 25 seconds (cycle 3 950 3458 25069 28527
time). The length of each heater is 1000 mm, and the 2 889 3208 20413 23621
distance between adjacent heaters is 300 mm. The data 1 812 2894 15496 18390
obtained from simulation was used to construct the
relations between U, f1, f2 and all necessary outputs by Table 1 shows the heat losses at seven open spaces of
using response surface methodology (see Fig. 7). The the induction heating line for the case without insulating
considered outputs include current, power, heat losses, cover. Total heat losses is 275,998 W/m, equivalent to
temperature distribution in the radial and axial direction, 82.8 kW. If the insulating cover is applied, the total
temperature deviation in the cross-section of the thermal losses at these corresponding position drop to
workpiece at the end of heating, and the energy 8,540 W/m (see Table 2), equivalent to 2.6 kW. It is
efficiency. clear that approximate 80 kW can be saved. The
For hot forging, both of the energy efficiency and optimum thickness of the insulating layers are shown in
quality related to the uniformity of temperature the two last columns of Table 2.
distribution in the workpiece are important criteria.
Based on the approximate relations between process Table 2. The heat losses and the optimum thickness of the insulating
parameters and energy efficiency as well as the covers for the case of using insulation
temperature deviation, we found that minimizing the
Position t1 ( C) t2 ( C) t4 ( C) q (W/m) 1 (m) 2 (m)
temperature deviation will decrease the energy
efficiency. In practice, it is unnecessary to reduce the 7 1220 1210.0 151.2 1748.1 0.045 0.078
temperature deviation down to a too small value. 6 1200 1191.9 140.2 1365.8 0.020 0.080
Therefore, temperature deviation is treated as a technical 5 1160 1151.5 137.2 1317.3 0.020 0.080
constraint. In case of hot forging automotive crankshaft,
4 1030 1020.1 127.1 1159.9 0.020 0.080
the temperature deviation across the cross-section of the
billet is practically chosen in the range of 2 3 C, a strict 3 950 939.3 120.7 1063.1 0.020 0.080
value for better heating quality. The optimization 2 889 877.5 115.6 989.4 0.020 0.080
problem is stated as follows: 1 812 799.4 109.1 896.5 0.020 0.080
Maximize the energy efficiency
Subject to 2 temperature deviation 3; 700 f1 Figure 8 shows the result of multi-objective
1100, 900 f2 1300, and 450 U 550. optimization (maximize efficiency and minimize the
temperature deviation) solved by genetic algorithm. It
was found that the optimum values of voltage, frequency
f1, and f2 are 472 V, 920 Hz, and 1160 Hz, respectively.
Temperature deviation ( C)

The frequency f3 was estimated as 1115 Hz. The

Temperature deviation ( C)
Efficiency

maximum energy efficiency is 62.9% (see Fig. 9),

Efficiency

greater than the worse case in 27 simulation experiments

6.2% (62.9% compared to 56.7%). Minimum
temperature deviation is 2.5 C. It can be seen that
(a) (b)
Temperature deviation ( C)

Fig. 7. The regression relation between frequencies and the total

efficiency (a), frequencies and the temperature deviation (b)

5. Results and discussions

The results of the design and optimization of the

Number of run Number of run
insulating covers as well as the optimization of the
process parameters are presented in this section. Fig. 8. History of the value of the objective functions using GA
 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia CIRP 7 (2013) 646 – 651 651

100.0
89.6 89.9 Thermal & electrical efficiency
1400 physical experiment and implementation of this work at
90.0 the demo site will be the further works in order to

Average billet's temperature (°C)

84.0
79.8 Electromagnetic efficiency 78.3
1200
80.0
70.0
71.6 71.8 72.4 72.6 72.8
1000 compare and verify the simulated and practical results.
63.3 62.9
59.9
Efficiency (%)

60.0 55.3
800
49.9
50.0 44.4
600
40.0 Acknowledgements
30.0 400
20.0
10.0
200 This work was supported by the Ministry of
0.0 0
Knowledge Economy, Korea, under the International
Heater Heater Heater Heater Heater Heater Heater
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Total Collaborative R&D Program hosted by the Korea
Fig. 9. Electromagnetic efficiency and the total energy efficiency Institute of Industrial Technology.

optimizing process parameters significantly increases the References

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