Microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of titanium-alloying high borated steel sheets fabricated by twin-roll strip casting

Abstract

High borated steels have been applied in the nuclear power industry as excellent neutron-shielding materials, but their ductility was relatively low due to the large and brittle borides, restricting their wider utilization. In this work, the high-performance borated steels containing 2.40 wt% B were fabricated through a designing combination of titanium-alloying along with twin-roll strip casting technology. It was found that titanium addition facilitated the increasing boron content of eutectic point for steels. The TiB2 particles solidifying firstly from molten steel depleted massive boron atoms in advance, leading to an as-cast microstructure consisting of more γ-Fe and less M2B-type borides comparing with titanium-free steels. Besides, TiB2 particles were 200–240 nm, and they could act as heterogeneous nucleation cores for M2B borides. Thus dispersive and fine M2B borides smaller than 5 μm were produced in as-cast microstructure. After subsequent hot-rolling and solution-treating, ultra-fine borides were obtained with more than 80% of which in a size range of 0.1–2 μm. In this case, the steels exhibited an excellent total elongation of 16.2% that was twice as high as that of titanium-free steels. Additionally, the relations between microstructure and mechanical properties of hot-rolled and solution-treated steels were clarified. The ductility of steels was determined by the volume fraction of γ-Fe matrix that could accommodate large deformation, but the strength of steels was dominated by the volume fraction of borides that provided the strengthening effects including grain refinement, load transfer term and hindering the dislocation slip. This work provided a new promising method to enhance the ductility of such high borated steels.