  The purpose of the Liscic/Petrofer probe is to determine the cooling
intensity during liquid quenching in laboratory and workshop environments. The
surface heat transfer coefficient is calculated by the one-dimensional finite
volume method from the smoothed temperature curve, measured at a near-surface
point in the probe. Smoothed reference temperature curves for oil and water,
based on measurements made by the probe, are used in a series of numerical
experiments to investigate the sensitivity of the calculation with respect to
various input parameters of the problem, such as: thermal properties of the
material, the near-surface thermocouple position, and the diameter of the
probe. These results are relevant for other liquid quenchants, at least
qualitatively, if not quantitatively. A similar type of analysis is conducted
with respect to the variation of numerical simulation parameters in the finite
volume method---the choice of space and time steps for problem discretization.
When the input curves are sufficiently smooth, the method itself is very
reliable.
