Atomic Scale Investigation of Solutes and Precipitates in High Strength Steels

2013 ◽  
Vol 762 ◽  
pp. 14-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hodgson ◽  
Subrata Mukherjee ◽  
Hossein Beladi ◽  
Xiang Yuan Xiong ◽  
Ilana B. Timokhina

Two steels, ferritic, high strength with interphase precipitation and nanobainitic, were used to show the advances in and application of atom probe. The coexistence of the nanoscale, interphase Nb-Mo-C clusters and stoichiometric MC nanoparticles was found in the high strength steel after thermomechanical processing. Moreover, the segregation of carbon at different heterogeneous sites such as grain boundary that reduces the solute element available for fine precipitation was observed. The APT study of the solutes redistribution between the retained austenite and bainitic ferrite in the nanobainitic steel revealed: (i) the presence of two types of the retained austenite with higher and lower carbon content and (ii) segregation of carbon at the local defects such as dislocations in the bainitic ferrite during the isothermal hold.

2012 ◽  
Vol 706-709 ◽  
pp. 2332-2337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilana B. Timokhina ◽  
Hossein Beladi ◽  
Xiang Yuan Xiong ◽  
Peter D. Hodgson

The influence of pre-straining and bake-hardening on the mechanical properties of thermomechanically processed 0.2C-1.5Si-1.5Mn-0.2Mo-0.004Nb (wt%) steel was analysed using tensile test, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atom probe tomography (APT). This steel after processing had high strength (~1200MPa) and good ductility (~20%) due to the formation of fully bainitic microstructure with nanolayers of bainitic ferrite and retained austenite. The bake hardening (BH) of pre-strained (PS) samples increased the yield strength of steel up to 690MPa and showed the bake-hardening response of 220MPa due to the operation of several strengthening mechanisms such as transformation induced plasticity during pre-straining and pinning the dislocations by carbon during bake-hardening treatment. The carbon content of the bainitic ferrite and retained austenite before and after bake-hardening treatment, the solute distribution between these phases and the local composition of fine Fe-C clusters and particles formed during bake-hardening treatment was calculated using APT. The bainitic ferrite and retained austenite microstructural characteristics such as thickness of the layers and their dislocation density before and after bake-hardening treatment were studied using TEM.


2012 ◽  
Vol 706-709 ◽  
pp. 2734-2739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hana Jirková ◽  
Ludmila Kučerová ◽  
Bohuslav Mašek

The use of the combined influence of retained austenite and bainitic ferrite to improve strength and ductility has been known for many years from the treatment of multiphase steels. Recently, the very fine films of retained austenite along the martensitic laths have also become the centre of attention. This treatment is called the Q-P process (quenching and partitioning). In this experimental program the quenching temperature and the isothermal holding temperature for diffusion carbon distribution for three advanced high strength steels with carbon content of 0.43 % was examined. The alloying strategies have a different content of manganese and silicon, which leads to various martensite start and finish temperatures. The model treatment was carried out using a thermomechanical simulator. Tested regimes resulted in a tensile strength of over 2000MPa with a ductility of above 14 %. The increase of the partitioning temperature influenced the intensity of martensite tempering and caused the decrease of tensile strength by 400MPa down to 1600MPa and at the same time more than 10 % growth of ductility occurred, increasing it to more than 20%.


2010 ◽  
Vol 654-656 ◽  
pp. 102-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilana B. Timokhina ◽  
Hossein Beladi ◽  
Xiang Yuan Xiong ◽  
Elena V. Pereloma ◽  
Peter D. Hodgson

The effect of composition and processing schedule on the microstructure of C-Mn-Si-Mo-(Al)-(Nb) steels containing nano-bainite was studied using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atom probe tomography (APT). The major phase formed in all steels was nano-bainite. However, the steels with lower carbon and alloying addition content subjected to TMP had better mechanical properties than high alloyed steel after isothermal treatment. The presence of ferrite in the microstructure can improve not only ductility but lead to the formation of retained austenite with optimum chemical stability.


Author(s):  
A. S. Oryshchenko ◽  
V. A. Malyshevsky ◽  
E. A. Shumilov

The article deals with modeling of thermomechanical processing of high-strength steels at the Gleeble 3800 research complex, simulating thermomechanical processing with various temperature and deformation parameters of rolling and with accelerated cooling to a predetermined temperature. The identity of steel hardening processes at the Gleeble 3800 complex and specialized rolling mills, as well as the possibility of obtaining steels of unified chemical composition, are shown.


Metals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1136
Author(s):  
Marcel Carpio ◽  
Jessica Calvo ◽  
Omar García ◽  
Juan Pablo Pedraza ◽  
José María Cabrera

Designing a new family of advanced high-strength steels (AHSSs) to develop automotive parts that cover early industry needs is the aim of many investigations. One of the candidates in the 3rd family of AHSS are the quenching and partitioning (QP) steels. These steels display an excellent relationship between strength and formability, making them able to fulfill the requirements of safety, while reducing automobile weight to enhance the performance during service. The main attribute of QP steels is the TRIP effect that retained austenite possesses, which allows a significant energy absorption during deformation. The present study is focused on evaluating some process parameters, especially the partitioning temperature, in the microstructures and mechanical properties attained during a QP process. An experimental steel (0.2C-3.5Mn-1.5Si (wt%)) was selected and heated according to the theoretical optimum quenching temperature. For this purpose, heat treatments in a quenching dilatometry and further microstructural and mechanical characterization were carried out by SEM, XRD, EBSD, and hardness and tensile tests, respectively. The samples showed a significant increment in the retained austenite at an increasing partitioning temperature, but with strong penalization on the final ductility due to the large amount of fresh martensite obtained as well.


Materials ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 2302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yilin Wang ◽  
Huicheng Geng ◽  
Bin Zhu ◽  
Zijian Wang ◽  
Yisheng Zhang

The application of the quenching and partitioning (Q-P) process on advanced high-strength steels improves part ductility significantly with little decrease in strength. Moreover, the mechanical properties of high-strength steels can be further enhanced by the stepping-quenching-partitioning (S-Q-P) process. In this study, a two-stage quenching and partitioning (two-stage Q-P) process originating from the S-Q-P process of an advanced high-strength steel 30CrMnSi2Nb was analyzed by the simulation method, which consisted of two quenching processes and two partitioning processes. The carbon redistribution, interface migration, and phase transition during the two-stage Q-P process were investigated with different temperatures and partitioning times. The final microstructure of the material formed after the two-stage Q-P process was studied, as well as the volume fraction of the retained austenite. The simulation results indicate that a special microstructure can be obtained by appropriate parameters of the two-stage Q-P process. A mixed microstructure, characterized by alternating distribution of low carbon martensite laths, small-sized low-carbon martensite plates, retained austenite and high-carbon martensite plates, can be obtained. In addition, a peak value of the volume fraction of the stable retained austenite after the final quenching is obtained with proper partitioning time.


2010 ◽  
Vol 654-656 ◽  
pp. 82-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shu Zhou ◽  
Ying Wang ◽  
Nai Lu Chen ◽  
Yong Hua Rong ◽  
Jian Feng Gu

The quenching-partitioning-tempering (Q-P-T) process, based on the quenching and partitioning (Q&P) treatment, has been proposed for producing high strength steels containing significant fraction of film-like retained austenite and controlled amount of fine martensite laths. In this study, a set of Q-P-T processes for C-Mn-Si-Ni-Nb hot rolled plates are designed and realized. The steels with Q-P-T processes present a combination of high strength and relatively good ductility. The origin of such mechanical properties is revealed by microstructure characterization.


2016 ◽  
Vol 879 ◽  
pp. 867-872 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.C. Taboada ◽  
I. Gutiérrez ◽  
D. Jorge-Badiola ◽  
S.M.C. van Bohemen ◽  
F. Hisker ◽  
...  

New trends focused on achieving higher performance steels has led to a so-called 3rd Generation Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS), in which the typical polygonal ferrite found in TRIP steels as a matrix phase is replaced by harder phases as Carbide-Free Bainite (CFB) and/or (tempered) martensite. Besides, large volume fractions of retained austenite (R.A.) with adequate stability are aimed for to improve the formability of the steels. Si containing steels are regarded as the most suitable to retard cementite formation and consequently reach high volume fractions of RA. In this work, CFB annealing schedules were applied to dilatometer samples of Fe-0.22C-2.0Mn-1.3Si. The overaging temperature TB was varied between 390 oC and 480 oC, and other processing variables investigated were the austenitizing temperature Taus, and the overaging holding time tB. The annealed samples analyzed with LOM, FEG-SEM, EBSD and X-ray diffraction techniques show that markedly different complex microstructures made up of bainite, ferrite, MA phase and retained austenite (R.A) are accomplished depending on the specific thermal cycle. These results are described in detail and discussed in relation to the dilatometry measurements.


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