A New Modified Austempering to Increase Strength and Ductility Simultaneously for UHS Steels

Abstract

In this paper, a modified up-quenching heat treatment method to the ASSAB 705M steel (ultra high strength steel) is proposed. A low alloy steel (0.33%C), was used to study the effect of isothermal austempering, successive austempering and modified up-quenching austempering heat treatment on the mechanical properties. The specimens, were cut from a bar with 25mm diameter and after achieving the best temperature and time of austenitizing, austenitized at for 60 min and followed by quenching at for the high austempering temperature to achieve the upper bainite morphology and at for the lower austempering temperature to achieve the lower bainite morphology. In the case of successive austempering, the specimens were first austempered at for different periods (500 sec and 60 sec) and then austempered at for 1000 sec to achieve the mixed structure of upper bainite and lower bainite morphology. The specimens selected for up-quenching, after austenitization were quenched to below ( ) for 120 sec. followed by heating at to achieve the mixed structure of tempered martensite and lower bainite and to achieve the mixed structure of tempered martensite and upper bainite for 1000 sec. All of the processes were performed in the salt bath furnaces. Experimental results are presented and the advantages of the modified method are discussed. As well, it is shown that the best combination of strength and ductility can be achieved by the proposed heat treatment method. This modified method, can offer techniques that simultaneously improve not only strength 12 %( compare with results of strength after other heat treatment methods), but also ductility 38 %( compare with results of ductility after other heat treatment methods). While, conventional heat treatment of ultra high strength steels (UHSS) cannot always meet the strict engineering requirements for improved strength and ductility simultaneously. It has been shown that the mixed structure of tempered martensite and lower bainite that has been suggested in this investigation offers a good combination of strength and ductility. The technical reason for this superiority returns back to the fact that it has increased dislocation density. As a result of the increment of the dislocation density, in the morphology, the inter lath carbide (e.g. cementite) decreases, and the intra lath carbide increases. This modified austempering is applicable to all the ultra high strength steels, has noticeable economic advantages because it is simple. Use of this modified austempering for heavy parts, leads to the lightness of heavy parts and combination of the thermomechanical methods with this modified austempering can yield even much more improvements.