Mechanical properties relationships in V‐ and Ti‐microalloyed steels

Abstract

Microalloyed steels are characterised by their mechanical properties. Nowadays, they are used in a wide range of applications. The convenience and simplicity of hardness tests permit to obtain economically and rapidly information on the structure of steels and control their treatments. This study has been carried out to derive equations for prediction of the mechanical properties of microalloyed steels by hardness measurement. With this objective, V‐ and Ti‐microalloyed plain carbon steel bars were melted, hot rolled, heat treated and machined for the measurement of their mechanical properties and to reach a correlation between both ultimate tensile strength, yield strength and uniform elongation and Vickers hardness. The obtained data were treated using different mathematical fittings. They are mathematically treated as groups according to the heat treatment processes and as one group. The derived equations show good agreement with each other and with most of the little relations found in the literature. General equations for deducing mechanical properties values from the easily measured Vickers hardness values were derived. The equations derived from one group without regarding the treatment processes are more reliable.