Effects of B and Cu Addition and Cooling Rate on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties in Low-Carbon, High-Strength Bainitic Steels

The effects of B and Cu addition and cooling rate on microstructure and mechanical properties of low-carbon, high-strength bainitic steels were investigated in this study. The steel specimens were composed mostly of bainitic ferrite, together with small amounts of acicular ferrite, granular bainite, and martensite. The yield and tensile strengths of all the specimens were higher than 1000?MPa and 1150?MPa, respectively, whereas the upper shelf energy was higher than 160?J and energy transition temperature was lower than 208?K (?C65?°C) in most specimens. The slow-cooled specimens tended to have the lower strengths, higher elongation, and lower energy transition temperature than the fast-cooled specimens. The Charpy notch toughness was improved with increasing volume fraction of acicular ferrite because acicular ferrites favorably worked for Charpy notch toughness even when other low-toughness microstructures such as bainitic ferrite and martensite were mixed together. To develop high-strength bainitic steels with an excellent combination of strength and toughness, the formation of bainitic microstructures mixed with acicular ferrite was needed, and the formation of granular bainite was prevented.     

Effects of Cooling Conditions on Microstructure, Tensile Properties, and Charpy Impact Toughness of Low-Carbon High-Strength Bainitic Steels

In this study, four low-carbon high-strength bainitic steel specimens were fabricated by varying finish cooling temperatures and cooling rates, and their tensile and Charpy impact properties were investigated. All the bainitic steel specimens consisted of acicular ferrite, granular bainite, bainitic ferrite, and martensite-austenite constituents. The specimens fabricated with higher finish cooling temperature had a lower volume fraction of martensite-austenite constituent than the specimens fabricated with lower finish cooling temperature. The fast-cooled specimens had twice the volume fraction of bainitic ferrite and consequently higher yield and tensile strengths than the slow-cooled specimens. The energy transition temperature tended to increase with increasing effective grain size or with increasing volume fraction of granular bainite. The fast-cooled specimen fabricated with high finish cooling temperature and fast cooling rate showed the lowest energy transition temperature among the four specimens because of the lowest content of coarse granular bainite. These findings indicated that Charpy impact properties as well as strength could be improved by suppressing the formation of granular bainite, despite the presence of some hard microstructural constituents such as bainitic ferrite and martensite-austenite.     

Effects of Rolling and Cooling Conditions on Microstructure and Tensile and Charpy Impact Properties of Ultra-Low-Carbon High-Strength Bainitic Steels

Six ultra-low-carbon high-strength bainitic steel plates were fabricated by controlling rolling and cooling conditions, and effects of bainitic microstructure on tensile and Charpy impact properties were investigated. The microstructural evolution was more critically affected by start cooling temperature and cooling rate than by finish rolling temperature. Bainitic microstructures such as granular bainites (GBs) and bainitic ferrites (BFs) were well developed as the start cooling temperature decreased or the cooling rate increased. When the steels cooled from 973 K or 873 K (700 °C or 600 °C) were compared under the same cooling rate of 10 K/s (10 °C/s), the steels cooled from 973 K (700 °C) consisted mainly of coarse GBs, while the steels cooled from 873 K (600 °C) contained a considerable amount of BFs having high strength, thereby resulting in the higher strength but the lower ductility and upper shelf energy (USE). When the steels cooled from 673 K (400 °C) at a cooling rate of 10 K/s (10 °C/s) or 0.1 K/s (0.1 °C/s) were compared under the same start cooling temperature of 873 K (600 °C), the fast cooled specimens were composed mainly of coarse GBs or BFs, while the slowly cooled specimens were composed mainly of acicular ferrites (AFs). Since AFs had small effective grain size and contained secondary phases finely distributed at grain boundaries, the slowly cooled specimens had a good combination of strength, ductility, and USE, together with very low energy transition temperature (ETT).     

Effects of Start and Finish Cooling Temperatures on the Yield Strength and Uniform Elongation of Strain-Based API X100 Pipeline Steels

Three types of strain-based API X100 pipeline steels composed of polygonal ferrite (PF), acicular ferrite (AF), granular bainite (GB), bainitic ferrite (BF), and martensite–austenite (MA) were fabricated by varying the start cooling temperature (SCT) and finish cooling temperature (FCT). The effect of the microstructure on the yield strength and uniform elongation before and after strain aging was investigated. In the H-H steel fabricated at a high SCT and low FCT, the reduction in uniform elongation after prestraining was small, but the uniform elongation after heat treatment increased because of the presence of many mobile dislocations around AF and GB, which are present in a relatively high fraction. Because the H-L steel fabricated at high SCT and low FCT has a considerable amount of BF as a result of the significant degree of supercooling, carbon atoms were readily trapped at dislocations inside the BF during heat treatment, which reduced the resistance to strain aging. On the other hand, the L-L steel had a large amount of soft PF transformed in the two-phase (austenite + ferrite) region and high fractions of AF and MA because it was fabricated at low SCT and low FCT. As a result, the uniform elongation of the L-L steel was slightly increased after heat treatment because mobile dislocations were readily generated around the PF and MA boundaries under deformation.

     

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Resistance Spot Welding Joints of Carbonitrided Low-Carbon Steels

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B - Carbonitrided low-carbon steels are resistance welded in various engineering components. However, there are no reports on the microstructure and...     

Structure and Mechanical Properties of High-Strength Structural Steels

The structure and the mechanical properties of the high-strength structural martensitic steels used in manufacturing the mechanism parts subjected to significant cyclic dynamical loads are considered. All the steels have a similar martensitic–bainite structure and a high stability of their mechanical properties. At the same time, their structures are found to contain secondary phases, which can degrade their functional properties. 03Kh11N10M2T maraging steel exhibits fairly high impact toughness for this class of steels despite a brittle character of fracture during bending impact tests.     

超快速冷却对中碳钢组织和性能的影响

利用超快速冷却装置,通过控制轧后冷却路径,对某中碳钢的显微组织和力学性能进行了系统的研究.结果表明:超快速冷却可以抑制先共析铁索体的生成,破坏原有先共析铁素体的网状分布;超快速冷却显著缩小了珠光体的片层间距;随着超快速冷却后温度的降低,实验钢的强度和室温冲击韧性同时得到了提高.高温终轧+超快速冷却工艺可以使中碳钢获得良好的力学性能,避免了低温轧制带来的轧机负荷大的弊端,提高了轧制节奏.     

Correlation of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Thermomechanically Processed Low-Carbon Steels Containing Boron and Copper

The correlation of the microstructure and mechanical properties of thermomechanically processed low-carbon steels containing B and Cu was investigated in this study. Eighteen kinds of steel specimens were fabricated by varying B and Cu contents and finish cooling temperatures (FCTs) after controlled rolling, and then tensile and Charpy impact tests were conducted on them. Continuous cooling transformation (CCT) diagrams of the B-free and B-added steel specimens under nondeformed and deformed conditions were constructed by a combination of deformation dilatometry and metallographic methods. The addition of a very small amount of B remarkably decreased the transformation start temperatures near a bainite start temperature (Bs) and thus expanded the formation region of low-temperature transformation phases such as degenerate upper bainite (DUB) and lower bainite (LB) to slower cooling rates. On the other hand, a deformation in the austenite region promoted the formation of quasipolygonal ferrite (QPF) and granular bainite (GB) with an increase in transformation start temperatures. The tensile test results indicated that tensile strength primarily increased with decreasing FCT, while the yield strength did not vary much, except in some specimens. The addition of B and Cu, however, increased the tensile and yield strengths simultaneously because of the significant microstructural change occasionally affected by the FCT. The Charpy impact test results indicated that the steel specimens predominantly composed of LB and lath martensite (LM) had lower upper-shelf energy (USE) than those consisting of GB or DUB, but had nearly equivalent or rather lower ductile-to-brittle transition temperature (DBTT) in spite of the increased strength. According to the electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) analysis data, it was confirmed that LB and LM microstructures had a relatively smaller effective grain size than GB or DUB microstructures, which enhanced the tortuosity of cleavage crack propagation, thereby resulting in a decrease in DBTT.     

低碳贝氏体钢的组织类型及其对性能的影响

低碳贝氏体钢受控冷工艺的影响会得到不同类型的组织，在较慢速冷却时，在奥氏体中先形成针状铁素体，残余奥氏体会被包裹在铁素体之中，形成粒状贝氏体团。工业轧制试验表明．不同控制冷却工艺可得到两类组织，一类出现黑珠组织(富碳马氏体组织)．具有该组织的钢轧态冲击韧性低。另外一类为细化的板条贝氏体组织，具有该组织的钢轧态强度高，冲击韧性好，但伸长率不足。通过回火处理，存在黑珠组织钢的冲击韧性能得到提高，超细化板条贝氏体组织钢的伸长率也能得到改善，但后者屈服强度会比前者高100MPa左右。     

Ti/N对低碳贝氏体钢组织和力学性能的影响

研究了Ti/N对一种工程机械用高强度低碳贝氏体钢组织和力学性能的影响.研究结果表明,Ti/N值可明显影响钢中酸溶硼的收得率和力学性能.Ti/N在3.3以下时,酸溶硼的收得率小于50％;Ti/N大于3.6时酸溶硼收得率在75％以上;Ti/N超过4时,酸溶硼的收得率趋于90％,并不再有明显提高.随Ti/N的增加钢板的性能合...     

Effects of Mo and Controlled Cooling on Microstructure and Properties of Thick-Wall High-Strength Pipeline Steel

Herein, the effect of molybdenum (Mo) and postrolling cooling processes on the mechanical properties and microstructure transformation characteristics of an X80 thick-wall high-strength pipeline steel are deeply investigated. The results reveal that the yield strength and tensile strength of the steel are enhanced with Mo addition at the equalization temperature of 480 °C at a cooling rate of 25 °C s⁻¹, accompanied by the improvement in the yield ratio. However, when the postrolling cooling temperature is reduced to 380 °C, the mechanical properties of steels with Mo-free and 0.29 wt% Mo are comparable. The mechanistic study indicates that the Mo addition would inhibit the transformation from deformed austenite to polygonal ferrite, and promote the transformation of acicular ferrite/granular bainite at medium–low temperatures, as well as significant differences in the volume fraction, size, and morphology of martensite/austenite (M/A) in the matrix. Notably, the volume fraction of M/A decreases from 7.2% to less than 1.0% with Mo content increasing, while its average size also reduces from 1.5 to less than 1.0 μm. And the fine, spheroidal, and dispersed M/A is found to play a vital role in the high-strength and excellent low-temperature toughness of the steel.     

Fe-Mn-Si-Al钢力学性能与显微结构研究

对3种成分Fe-Mn-Si-Al钢的力学性能、显微结构和重位晶界进行了研究,结果表明:随着钢中Mn、Si和Al元素含量的降低,材料的屈服强度和抗拉强度逐渐升高,伸长率逐渐降低,低∑值重位晶界出现频率依次为83.4%、36%和21%,并且钢中形变孪晶的数量逐渐减少。Fe-30Mn-3Si-3Al钢中形变孪晶分为一次孪晶和二次孪晶,一次孪晶和二次孪晶生长方向成60°夹角,大部分二次孪晶分布在一次孪晶的两孪晶界之间,但在高应力的形变带内二次孪晶可穿过一次孪晶的孪晶界。     

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Martensitic High-Strength Engineering Steel

Metallurgist - A promising martensitic steel with good hardenability is studied. In the cooling rate range 0.1–30°C/sec and the only transformation recorded by a dilatometer starts at an...     

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of a Low Carbon Bainitic Steel

A low carbon bainitic steel with microstructure of granular bainite (GB), acicular ferrite (AF), and bainitic ferrite (BF) is obtained under different deformation and cooling rate. The effect of deformation and cooling rate on microstructural characteristics such as the type of the matrix, the size, and area fraction of the martensite–austenite (M–A) constituents is investigated. In addition, the nanohardness of these three kinds of matrix as well as that of the M–A constituents in them is characterized. Further, the effect of matrix and M–A constituents on strength–toughness balance is studied. Results indicate that deformation expands the transformation region. The size as well as the area fraction of the M–A constituent decreases with the increasing of the cooling rate. After deformation, the area fraction of the M–A constituents increases. Nanohardness of GB, AF, and BF increases orderly, but that of the M–A constituents in them decreases accordingly. The nanohardness of the M–A constituent is significantly affected by its carbon concentration. AF is the optimum microstructure having superior strength–toughness balance.     

Effect of Chemical Composition and Structure on Mechanical Properties of High-Strength Welding Steels

Metallurgist - Based on the analysis of the Russian-made 4 to 16 mm thick rolled products produced by thermomechanical rolling from high-strength (yield point: 433 to 828 MPa) low-alloyed welding...     

Effect of Microadditives on Center Segregation and Mechanical Properties of High-Strength Low-Alloy Steels

Metallurgist - One of the main tasks of steelmaking is to obtain the necessary thermodynamic conditions that ensure fine and homogeneous solidified microstructure. The relatively economical...