Investigation of Thermomechanical Processing of Nb Microalloyed Steel Produced by Powder Metallurgy

Abstract

One of the most important properties of microalloyed steels is the different microstructures which are obtained by changing the thermomechanical processing parameters and steel composition. The control of microstructure such as grain size, precipitates, dislocation structure and inclusions are highly effective to determine the mechanical properties of microalloyed steels. The strengthening of mechanical properties can be done by thermomechanical processesing due to increase of nucleation sides via maximizing the austenite boundary and density of the deformation band. In this study, the unalloyed steel and microalloyed steel containing 0.15% Nb were produced by powder metallurgy and hot deformed to reduce the thickness by 40% and 75%. EDX analyzes, density, hardness and grain size measurements were also performed on specimens. According to the SEM microstructure results, the grain size gradually decreased with respect to the deformation rate in both steels. It was observed that small grains occurred due to a complete recrystallization process at 75% deformation rate which were supported by grain size analysis. The density and hardness values increased by the increase in deformation rate. While the density and hardness of microalloy steel under sintered conditions was 89.46% and 75 Hv, respectively, 75% deformed condition was 98.51 % and 231 Hv.