Residual Stress of Case-Hafdened Splined Shaft with Straight-Sided Teeth

This paper presents a study on the residual stresses generated by case-hardening in the splined shaft with straight-sided teeth. A heat conduction analysis and an elastic-plastic stress analysis during the quenching process of the splined shaft were carried out by means of the 2-dimensiona1 finite element method (FEM), with changes of the thermal expansion coefficient and yield stress with the temperature and carbon content being taken into consideration. The effects of the tooth profi1e of the splined shaft and the case depth on the residual stress were examined, and the optimum case depth was clarified.