Novel method for refinement of retained austenite in micro/nano-structured bainitic steels |
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| Authors: | F Hu X L Wan I Rodionova A A Shirzadi F C Zhang |
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| Affiliation: | 1. The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, International Research Institute for Steel Technology, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China;2. CMPC Center, I. P. Bardin Central Research Institute for Ferrous Metallurgy, Moscow, Russia;3. Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK;4. State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, National Engineering Research Center for Equipment and Technology of Cold Strip Rolling, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China |
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| Abstract: | A comparative study was conducted to assess the effects of two different heat treatments on the amount and morphology of the retained austenite in a micro/nano-structured bainitic steel. The heat treatments used in this work were two-stage bainitic transformation and bainitic-partitioning transformation. Both methods resulted in the generation of a multi-phase microstructure containing nanoscale bainitic ferrite, and/or fresh martensitic phases and much finer retained austenite. Both heat treatments were verified to be effective in refining the retained austenite in micro/nano-structured bainite and increasing the hardness. However, the bainitic transformation followed by partitioning cycle was proved to be a more viable approach than the two-stage bainitic transformation due to much shorter processing time, i.e. ～2?h compared to ～4 day, respectively. |
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| Keywords: | Retained austenite austenite refinement quenching and partitioning two-stage bainitic transformation micro/nano-structured bainitic steel |
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