Suppress Austenite Grain Coarsening by Nb Alloying in High-Temperature-Pseudo-Carburized Bearing Steel.

The effect of Nb alloying on the suppression of austenite grain coarsening behavior during pseudo-carburizing is investigated in high-temperature-carburized SAE4320 bearing steel. To explore the role of the Nb element in the pseudo-carburizing process, the morphology, composition, size, and distribution of NbC precipitates were analyzed. The results show that the fine austenite grain observed in Nb micro-alloyed steel is caused by the pinning effect of NbC precipitates, which hinders the coarsening of austenite grains and changes the growth dynamics of austenite grains. After the SAE4320 carburized bearing steel with the addition of 0.45 wt.% Nb element is kept at 1150 °C for 4 h, the PAG size is still below 20 µm, which indicates the Nb element has obvious advantages in limiting PAG growth at high temperatures and shows great potential for the development of high-temperature carburized bearing steel.

Microstructure Heterogeneity and Mechanical Properties of a High-Strength Ductile Laminated Steel by Electron Beam Welding.

The aim of this study is to fabricate high-strength steel with exceptional yield strength and superior ductility by employing a novel design approach of nanolamellar/equiaxial crystal "sandwich" heterostructures, utilizing rolling and electron-beam-welding techniques. The microstructural heterogeneity of the steel is manifested in the phase content and grain size, ranging from nanolamellae comprising a small quantity of martensite on both sides to the completely coarse austenite in the center, which are interconnected via gradient interfaces. The structural heterogeneity and phase-transformation-induced plasticity (TIRP) offer remarkable strength and ductility for the samples. Furthermore, the synergistic confinement of the heterogeneous structures leads to the formation of Lüders bands, which exhibit stable propagation under the TIRP effect and impede the onset of plastic instability, ultimately resulting in a significant improvement in the ductility of the high-strength steel.

Influence Mechanisms of Inclusion Types on Rotating Bending Fatigue Properties of SAE52100 Bearing Steel.

The rotating bending fatigue crack sources of SAE52100 high carbon bearing steel were studied in this paper. On the fatigue fracture surfaces, inclusions for crack initiation are mainly Ca-Al-O and TiN inclusions, and the size of TiN inclusions is much smaller than that of Ca-Al-O inclusions. The analysis of inclusions by Aspex shows that the number and size of Ca-Al-O inclusions in the matrix are much larger than those of TiN inclusions. Combined with the calculation of stress intensity factor and the analysis of stress concentration factor, the sharp angle characteristic of TiN inclusions is the main reason for its stronger deterioration to fatigue properties, and the damaging effect of TiN inclusions with the same size to the matrix fatigue properties is about 1.33-1.67 times that of Ca-Al-O inclusions.

Effect of Al Additions and Cooling Rate on the Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Austenite FeMnAlC Steels.

The precipitation behavior of κ-carbide and its effects on mechanical properties in Fe-30Mn-xAl-1C (x = 7-11%) steels under water quenching and furnace cooling are studied in the present paper. TEM, XRD, EPMA were employed to characterize the microstructure, and tensile test and the Charpy impact test were used to evaluate mechanical properties. The results show that the density decreases by 0.1 g/cm3 for every 1 wt.% of Al addition. The excellent mechanical properties of tensile strength of 880 MPa and impact absorption energy of 120-220 J at -40 °C with V notch were obtained, with both solid solution and precipitation strengthening results in the yield strength increasing by about 57.5 MPa with per 1% Al addition in water-quenched samples. The increasing of yield strength of furnace-cooled samples comes from the relative strengthening of κ-carbides, and the strengthening potential reaches 107-467 MPa. The lower the cooling rate, the easier it is to promote the precipitation of κ-carbides and the formation of ferrite. The partitioning of C, Mn, Al determines the formation of κ-carbides at a given Al addition, and element partition makes the κ-carbides sufficiently easy to precipitate at a low cooling rate. The precipitation of κ-carbides improves strength and does not significantly reduce the elongation, but significantly reduces the impact absorption energy when Al addition ≥ 8%.

High Temperature Deformation Behavior and Microstructure Evolution of Low-Density Steel Fe30Mn11Al1C Micro-Alloyed with Nb and V.

The thermal processing parameters is very important to the hot rolling and forging process for producing grain refinement in lightweight high-manganese and aluminum steels. In this work, the high temperature deformation behaviors of a low-density steel of Fe30Mn11Al1C alloyed with 0.1Nb and 0.1V were studied by isothermal hot compression tests at temperatures of 850-1150 °C and strain rates between 0.01 s-1 and 10 s-1. It was found that the flow stress constitutive model could be effectively established by the Arrhenius based hyperbolic sine equation with an activation energy of about 389.1 kJ/mol. The thermal processing maps were developed based on the dynamic material model at different strains. It's shown that the safe region for high temperatures in a very broad range of both deformation temperature and deformation strain and only a small unstable high deformation region, located at low temperatures lower than 950 °C. The deformation microstructures were found to be fully recrystallized microstructure in the safe deformation region and the grain size decreases along with decreasing temperature and increasing strain rate. Whereas the deformation microstructures is composed by grain refinement-recrystallized grains and a small fraction of non-recrystallized microstructure in the unstable deformation region, indicating that the deformation behaviors controlled by continuous dynamic recrystallization. The Hall Petch relationship between microhardness and the grain size of the high temperature deformed materials indicates that high strength low-density steel could be developed by a relative low temperature deformation and high strain rate.

Strong Interactions between Austenite and the Matrix of Medium-Mn Steel during Intercritical Annealing.

The effects of heat treatment on the microstructure evolution was studied in regards to austenite nucleation and grain growth. It was found that the austenite nucleation and matrix recrystallization kinetics of samples annealed at 675 °C for different times were revealed, implying a strong interaction between the ferrite matrix and austenite was revealed. The recrystallization of the matrix during annealing provided favorable conditions for austenite nucleation and growth, and the formation of austenite during this process reduced the matrix recrystallization kinetics, thus delaying the recrystallization process of the matrix around the austenite grains. The statistical results for the austenite grain size under different annealing temperatures indicated that the average grain size of the austenite slightly increases with increasing of the annealing temperature, but the austenite with the largest grain size grows faster at the same temperature. This difference is attributed to the strict Kurdjumov Sachs (KS) orientation relationship (OR) between the austenite grains and the matrix, because the growth of austenite with a strict KS OR with the matrix is often inhibited during annealing. In contrast, the austenite maintains a non-strict KS OR with the matrix and can grow preferentially with increasing annealing temperature and time.

Dynamic reverse phase transformation induced high-strain-rate superplasticity in low carbon low alloy steels with commercial potential.

Superplastic materials are capable of exhibiting large tensile elongation at elevated temperature, which is of great industrial significance because it forms the basis of a fabrication method to produce complex shapes. Superplasticity with elongation larger than 500% has been widely realized in many metals and alloys, but seldomly been succeeded in low carbon low alloy steel, even though it is commercially applied in the largest quantity. Here we report ultrahigh superplastic elongation of 900-1200% in the FeMnAl low carbon steels at high strain rate of 10-2-10-3 s-1. Such high-strain-rate superplasticity was attributed to dynamic austenite reverse phase transformation from a heavily cold rolled ferrite to fine-grained ferrite/austenite duplex microstructure and subsequent limited dynamic grain coarsening, under which a large fraction of high angle boundaries can be resulted for superplastic deformation. It is believed that this finding of the low carbon low alloy steel with ultrahigh superplasticity and relative low cost would remarkably promote the application of superplastic forming technique in automobile, aeronautical, astronautical and other fields.

Ultrahigh Charpy impact toughness (~450J) achieved in high strength ferrite/martensite laminated steels.

Strength and toughness are a couple of paradox as similar as strength-ductility trade-off in homogenous materials, body-centered-cubic steels in particular. Here we report a simple way to get ultrahigh toughness without sacrificing strength. By simple alloying design and hot rolling the 5Mn3Al steels in ferrite/austenite dual phase temperature region, we obtain a series of ferrite/martensite laminated steels that show up-to 400-450J Charpy V-notch impact energy combined with a tensile strength as high as 1.0-1.2 GPa at room temperature, which is nearly 3-5 times higher than that of conventional low alloy steels at similar strength level. This remarkably enhanced toughness is mainly attributed to the delamination between ferrite and martensite lamellae. The current finding gives us a promising way to produce high strength steel with ultrahigh impact toughness by simple alloying design and hot rolling in industry.