Microstructure Of Experimental Steel Research Articles

Effect of rolling temperature on microstructure and mechanical properties of medium manganese steel

The effect of rolling temperature on the incomplete recrystallization behavior and the relationship to mechanical properties in 0.06C–4Mn-1.2Cr (wt.%) steel was investigated. Three plates of experimental steel were produced by hot rolling at different temperatures and intercritical annealing processes in this study. The microstructure of experimental steels was examined by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The mechanical properties of test steel were examined by impact test and tensile test. Austenite reversion and cementite precipitation-dissolution was numerically simulated under the assumption of local equilibrium. With the decrease of hot rolling temperature from 1000 °C to 800 °C, the uniform equiaxed prior austenite grains microstructures changed to heterogeneous microstructures of laminated and ultrafine prior austenite grains arranged alternatively. The tensile and impact tests revealed that the medium manganese steels rolling at 800 °C had an excellent combination of mechanical properties. Elongation had a great relationship with retained austenite fraction and stability. The fractography of impact specimens was examined to explore the toughening mechanism of the micro-laminated steels. The steel with uniform equiaxed grain structure exhibited a relatively low tensile strength of 750 MPa and low elongation of ∼20% and an extremely poor low-temperature toughness of ∼40 J at −40 °C. An enhanced low-temperature toughness (∼233 J at −40 °C), as well as an improved tensile strength (823 MPa) and higher elongation of ∼40%, was obtained in the steel with heterogeneous microstructures. The content of austenite in heterogeneous microstructure is twice that in uniform equiaxed grain structure. And cementite dissolved more thoroughly in the heterogeneous microstructure. The high austenite content of heterogeneous microstructures enabled the steel to be significantly stronger and ductile, which contributed to the high tensile strength and elongation to some extent. It is concluded that the effect of interface decohesion resulted in the occurrence of delamination. And the high austenite content and delamination greatly improved the low-temperature toughness of experimental steel.

Effect of Thermal Simulation Process on Microstructure of Seismic Steel Bars.

Thermal deformation has a significant influence on the microstructure of high-strength antiseismic steel. The effect of hot deformation on the microstructure of experimental steel was studied by the Gleeble-3800 thermal simulator. The microstructure of the steel was characterized by the metallographic microscope, microhardness, tensile test, field emission scanning electron microscope, electron backscatter diffraction, and high-resolution transmission electron microscope. The results show that the core microstructure of the test steel is composed of polygonal ferrite and lamellar pearlite. The test steel is mainly ductile fracture. Tensile strength and hardness increase with the decrease of temperature. At 650 °C isothermal temperature, the ferrite distribution was uniform, the average grain size was 7.78 μm, the grain size grade reached 11, the pearlite lamellar spacing was 0.208 μm, and the tensile fracture was distributed with uniform equiaxed dimples. Polygonal ferrite grain boundaries have high density dislocations that can effectively block the initiation and propagation of cracks. However, there are some low dislocation boundaries and subgrain boundaries in ferrite grains. Precipitation strengthening is mainly provided by fine precipitates of V-rich carbonitride in experimental steel. The precipitates are round or narrow strips, about 70–100 nm in size, distributed along ferrite grain boundaries and matrix.

Effect of Preheat Treatment on Microstructure and Properties of a Gear Steel for High‐Temperature Carburizing

Preheat treatment affects not only the microstructure and machinability of the gear steels, but also the final distortion after carburizing and quenching. The effects of preheat treatments of normalizing, tempering, isothermal normalizing, normalizing and tempering, and quenching and tempering on the microstructure and properties of the Nb–Ti microalloyed 18CrNiMo7‐6 gear steel for high‐temperature carburizing are systematically studied herein. The results show that preheat treatment has a significant influence on microstructure evolution, austenite grain coarsening behavior during pseudocarburizing, hardness distribution, and impact toughness of the experimental steel. The microstructure of experimental steel after quenching and tempering is typical tempered martensite with a large number of fine Cr‐rich carbides and Nb–Ti precipitates uniformly distributed. Compared with the pretreatments of simple normalizing, tempering, isothermal normalizing, and normalizing and tempering, the steel after quenching and tempering exhibits the best microstructure uniformity, austenite grain coarsening resistance, machinability, and impact toughness. For the Nb–Ti microalloyed 18CrNiMo7‐6 gear steel, quenching and tempering is the optimum preheat treatment prior to carburizing. In addition, the tempering temperature is selected in the range of 600–650 °C due to the effect of secondary hardening and phase transformation behavior.

Effects of Silicon Content and Tempering Temperature on the Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of HT-9 Steels.

Two kinds of experimental ferritic/martensitic steels (HT-9) with different Si contents were designed for the fourth-generation advanced nuclear reactor cladding material. The effects of Si content and tempering temperature on microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of these HT-9 steel were studied. The microstructure of experimental steels after quenching and tempering were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM); the mechanical properties were investigated by means of tensile test, Charpy impact test, and hardness test. The microscopic mechanism of how the microstructural evolution influences mechanical properties was also discussed. Both XRD and TEM results showed that no residual austenite was detected after heat treatment. The results of mechanical tests showed that the yield strength, tensile strength, and plasticity of the experimental steels with 0.42% (% in mass) Si are higher than that with 0.19% Si, whereas hardness and toughness did not change much; when tempered at 760 °C, the strength and hardness of the experimental steels decreased slightly compared with those tempered at 710 °C, whereas plasticity and toughness increased. Further analysis showed that after quenching at 1050 °C for 1 h and tempering at 760 °C for 1.5 h, the comprehensive mechanical properties of the 0.42% Si experimental steel are the best compared with other experimental steels.

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of 0.15C-1.5Mn-0.3Si Steel Treated by Quenching and Partitioning Process

In this paper, the microstructure and mechanical properties of 0.15C-1.5Mn-0.3Si steels after quenching and partitioning (Q&P) process was studied. The microstructure of experimental steels was characterized by optical microscope (OM), scan electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), and mechanical properties were performed through uni-axial tensile tests. The microstructure evolution during Q&P process was also discussed together with mechanical properties. The investigated steels show excellent strength and ductility product of 10.76GPa% with retained austenite content of 11.08%. The microstructure mainly consists of lath martensite and retained austenite at room temperature, which promotes persistent work hardening during deformation.

Secondary Hardening during Tempering of Cr-W-Mo-V High Alloy Medium-Upper Carbon Steel and its Hardness Forecast

Along with increasing W and Mo contents in Cr-W-Mo-V high alloy medium-upper carbon steels, the maximal hardness of secondary hardening during tempering is increasing gradually and arrives to 66.8HRC, and the congruent quenching temperature and the tempering temperature corresponding to maximal hardness are ascending. The quenching microstructure of experimental steels is matrix and a small quantity of undissolved carbides when the hardness is maximal, wich is corresponding to tempering temperature of remnant austenitic decomposing acutely. The precipitation of M6C and MC carbides was detected, and M7C3 and M3C carbides was detected too. But M23C6 carbide did not appear and M2C carbide was detected undistinguishably. The temperature range of tempering maximal hardness is 500°C-550°C, and an exact temperature is opposite to the mass fraction ratio of equilibrium carbide phases at the temperature. The tempering hardness value can be obtained from HS= a(1+b)/(0.0127a+0.00297), in which a is square root of saturation level of the carbon in the matrix and b is correction factor having something to do with alloy elements of carbide precipitation.

Study on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Hot Rolled Steel Plate Strengthened Complexly by Titanium and Molybdenum

Microstructure and mechanical properties of hot rolled steel plate strengthened complexly by titanium and molybdenum at different final rolling temperature and coiling temperature were studied by optical microscope (OM) and material testing machine. The precipitation behaviors of precipitates phase were obtained using transmission electron microscope (TEM) with EDS analysis. The results showed that at final temperature 850°C, microstructure of experimental steel were fine, uniform polygonal ferrite and acicular ferrite. With the coiling temperature decreasing from 620°C to 580 °C, the grain of polygonal ferrite became finer, and the amounts of acicular ferrite became more; precipitates phase mainly maintained both coarse TiN and small square round sheet (Ti,Mo)C. On the condition of the final rolling temperature (850°C) and coiling temperature (580°C), experimental steel acquired properties as follows: yield strength 608 MPa, tensile strength 720 MPa, elongation 24%. Ti-Mo composite strengthening effect had achieved, and significantly improved the strength of ferrite steel.