Abstract
The effect of hot-mounting for metallographic studies of as-quenched low-carbon martensitic steels has been studied. Hot-mounting is typically carried out at 150–200 °C, i.e., a low-temperature tempering regime. Cold- and hot-mounted specimens from an as-quenched low-carbon auto-tempered steel were examined using a scanning electron microscope and their hardness levels were also compared. It was found that hot-mounting causes additional tempering that manifests as the appearance of new precipitates in those regions that are free of auto-tempered cementite. The observations were rationalized using DICTRA simulations to calculate the potential growth of cementite. Hot-mounting was also shown to cause a small but statistically significant increase in the hardness of the martensite.
Highlights
IntroductionLow-carbon high-strength steels (
High-strength steels are utilized in weight-critical structures to save energy and to decrease the carbon footprint through, for example, reduced fuel consumption in transport applications [1,2].Low-carbon high-strength steels (
This paper demonstrates that this is, not the case, and that the use of hot-mounting does produce visible tempering effects that can cause incorrect electron microscopical characterization of the microstructure
Summary
Low-carbon high-strength steels (
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