Ageing Precipitate Strengthening of Cu-Containing Structural Steels
Microstructure evolution of Fe-1.18%Cu high purity steels during solution and aging was investigated under high-resolution electron microscope (HREM). In addition, the aging strengthening mechanisms were discussed based on the microstructure observation. The results show that there were lots of Cu atom clusters in ferrite matrix during solid solution and aging initial stages, subsequently, Cu-rich metastable Fe-Cu particles precipitate at the aging strength peak. It is found that the intense strengthening is controlled by the coherency relationship of Fe-Cu metastable phase with matrix that forms the obstacle of the dislocation motion, while the decrease of strength after the peak is attributed to the loss of coherency, which should highly likely be the dominant reason of aging strengthening in Cu bearing high purity steels Thus our TEM observation results are in reasonably agreement with some previous assume.