Ever since Habraken and Economopoulos first employed the term granular bainite to classify certain unconventional transformation products in continuously cooled steels, the term has been widely accepted and used, despite the lack of a clear consensus as to the detailed nature of the transformation products which constitute granular bainite. This paper presents the preliminary results of a TEM investigation of an 0.04 wt% C, copper-containing steel (designated HSLA-100). It is suggested that the term granular ferrite rather than granular bainite is a more accurate description of this multiphase reaction product.Figure 1 is a light micrograph of a sample which had been air-cooled from 900°C to room temperature. The microstructure is typical of that which has been termed granular bainite in the past and appears to consist of equiaxed ferritic grains together with other minor transformation products. In order to examine these structures in more detail, both continuously cooled and isothermally transformed and quenched materials have been examined with TEM. Granular bainite has been found in virtually all samples.
Accurate description of molecular dipole surface with charge flux implemented for molecular mechanics