Effect of Cooling Rate and Nb Composition on Non-Isothermal Austenite Grain Growth Kinetics in Nb-HSLA Steel during Hot Rolling

Abstract

Abstract. The strength of a final product of steel is affected by its final austenite grain size.Almost applied models for grain growth based on Beck and Sellars equation , which has the isothermal condition assumption; whilst most of the materials processing take place under non-isothermal condition. The purpose of this research is to find the effect of Nb and cooling rate to the austenite grain growth model of HSLA-Nb steel to predict the Austenite grain size after hot rolling process in non-isothermal condition .The two composition of 0.019 and 0.056% Nb of HSLA-Nb was hot-rolled about 0.3-0.4 deformation at a temperature of 900-11000 C, followed by cooling rate of 7-11 0 C/s, in a time period of 25-40 second, and quenched by using water jetspray. Austenite final grain size was measured . The work shows that the higher Nb content of steel with higher cooling rate will reduce the final austenite grain size . It was also found that the new non-isothermal austenite grain growth after hot-rolled illustrated as a function of cooling rate,which obtained by modifying the previous established model by a cooling rate parameter 1/Crm, and it was more precision compared to previous grain growth equation.