Mold heat treatment is an important process to ensure the performance of molds, which has a direct impact on the accuracy, strength, service life, and manufacturing cost of molds. It is precisely the close correlation between heat treatment technology and mold quality that enables these two technologies to mutually promote and improve in the process of modernization.

In recent years, the rapidly developing fields of international mold heat treatment technology are vacuum heat treatment technology, surface strengthening technology of molds, and pre hardening technology of mold materials.

Vacuum heat treatment technology is a new type of heat treatment technology that has developed in recent years. Its characteristics are urgently needed in mold manufacturing, such as preventing oxidation and non decarburization, vacuum degassing or degassing, eliminating hydrogen embrittlement, and improving the plasticity, toughness, and fatigue strength of materials (parts). The slow vacuum heating and small temperature difference between the inside and outside of the parts determine the small deformation of the parts caused by the vacuum heat treatment process.

According to the different cooling media used, vacuum quenching can be divided into vacuum oil cooling quenching, vacuum air cooling quenching, vacuum water cooling quenching, and vacuum nitrate isothermal quenching. The main applications in vacuum heat treatment of molds are vacuum oil quenching, vacuum gas quenching, and vacuum tempering. To maintain the excellent characteristics of vacuum heating of workpieces (such as molds), the selection and formulation of coolant and cooling process are very important. The quenching process of molds mainly uses oil cooling and air cooling.

For mold working surfaces that are no longer mechanically processed after heat treatment, vacuum tempering should be used as much as possible after quenching, especially for vacuum quenched workpieces (molds), which can improve the mechanical properties re.Such as fatigue performance, surface brightness, corrosion and so on.

The successful development and application of computer simulation technology of heat treatment process (including tissue simulation and performance prediction technology) makes the intelligent heat treatment of die possible. Due to the small batch (even a single piece) of mold production, the characteristics of multiple varieties, as well as the high requirements for heat treatment performance and the characteristics of not allowing waste products, and make the intelligent processing of molds become necessary.