A criterion for preventing quench cracks has not been established although much research has been conducted in this field. A few predictions of cracking have been recently reported using simulated results of heat treatment processes.However, these results were insufficient to predict crack generation clearly because the mechanism relates not only to stress distributions in the parts but also to material characteristics. Systematic studies by the combination of experiment and simulation are therefore required to reliably identify a criterion for crack prevention by computer simulation. As a preliminary work before starting the full-scale research, a review of quench cracking research was conducted and existing test methods were classified. Several test results for cylindrical specimens were simulated for considering a cause of the crack generation. Lastly a tentative plan was made for the future research.