Prediction of intragranular ferrite nucleation from TiO, TiN, and VN inclusions

Abstract

The current study presents a method to calculate the critical diameters of TiO, TiN, and VN inclusions for intragranular ferrite (IGF) nucleation in steels. Based on the calculation results, it was noted that the critical diameters of TiO, TiN, and VN inclusions for IGF nucleation were 0.192, 0.355, and 0.810 μm. The calculation results agreed with the experiment data of a minimum inclusion size for IGF nucleation in the actual steel samples. Moreover, the effects of Mn, C, and S contents on the critical diameters of inclusions were investigated. It was found that the critical diameters of TiO, TiN, and VN inclusions increased with the increasing Mn and C contents. In addition, it was found that S does not have a direct effect on the critical diameters of TiO, TiN, and VN inclusions. However, the increasing S content led to an increased amount of MnS precipitation in the actual steels. This is negative, since MnS is ineffective nucleation site for IGF nucleation. When the amount of MnS increases in steels, the area fraction of IGF slightly decreases. This fact has been investigated by in situ observation experiments.