Abstract
Studies of H13 steel suggest that under appropriate conditions, additions of rare-earth metals (REM) can significantly enhance mechanical properties, such as impact toughness. This improvement is apparently due to the formation of finer and more dispersive RE inclusions and grain refinement after REM additions. In this present work, the microstructure evolution and mechanical properties of H13 steel with rare earth additions (0, 0.015, 0.025 and 0.1 wt.%) were investigated. The grain size, inclusions and fracture morphology were systematically studied by means of optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results indicate that REM addition of 0.015 wt.% can result in good improvement of performance compared to the REM additions of 0.025 wt.% and 0.1 wt.%. It is found that the impact toughness is significantly enhanced with the addition of 0.015% REM, which can be improved 90% from 10 J to 19 J. Such an addition of REM can result in a huge volume fraction of finer and more dispersive inclusions which are extremely good to toughness.
Highlights
H13 steel is a kind of hot work die steel with high harden ability, good toughness, good heat resistance, thermal stability, antioxidant capacity and thermal fatigue behavior, which is widely used in hot-pressing, hot-extrusion and casting of dies [1,2]
Many studies have been done on the high temperature strength and the impact toughness of hot work die steels and a number of new types of hot work tool steels have been developed to improve such properties, They have found that the failure of H13 steel is mainly caused by the large and strip inclusions and the coarse microstructure [6,7,8,9,10]
It is obviously seen that the grain size of rare-earth metals (REM) free is relatively larger compared to the ingots with REM
Summary
H13 steel is a kind of hot work die steel with high harden ability, good toughness, good heat resistance, thermal stability, antioxidant capacity and thermal fatigue behavior, which is widely used in hot-pressing, hot-extrusion and casting of dies [1,2]. Increasing the impact toughness of dies is extremely important to increase the life of hot work die steels To solve this problem, many studies have been done on the high temperature strength and the impact toughness of hot work die steels and a number of new types of hot work tool steels have been developed to improve such properties, They have found that the failure of H13 steel is mainly caused by the large and strip inclusions and the coarse microstructure [6,7,8,9,10]. One of today’s modern manufacturing techniques, such as electroslag remelting (ESR)
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