Evolution of Microstructure in Welding Heat-Affected Zone of G115 Steel with the Different Content of Boron

Welding thermal simulation was performed to investigate the effects of boron content (0, 60, and 130 ppm), welding peak temperature (T_p), and cooling time from 800 to 500 °C (t_8/5) on the microstructure, carbide, subgrain, and microhardness of heat-affected zone (HAZ) in G115 steel. According to the experimental results, the microstructure of coarse-grained HAZ (CGHAZ), fine-grained HAZ (FGHAZ), inter-critical HAZ (ICHAZ), and sub-critically HAZ (SCHAZ) was martensite, martensite containing a small amount of undissolved carbide, martensite, and over-tempered martensite, tempered martensite, respectively. The presence of B element improved the thermal stability of M₂₃C₆ carbide, thereby resulting in a greater amount of undissolved carbides with a larger diameter in the materials with higher B content under the same T_p. Element B is effective in improving A_c1 and A_c3 for the material. Besides, compared with the material without and containing 60 ppm B, the A_c1 and A_c3 of the material containing 130 ppm B increased by 95 and 108 °C, 69 and 77 °C, respectively. Meanwhile, the FGHAZ area of the material containing 130 ppm B was significantly lower than the material without or containing 60 ppm B, indicating that element B can significantly reduce the formation range of FGHAZ. The alloy content in austenite of ICHAZ of materials without or containing 60 ppm B increased, compared with CGHAZ, its M_s and M_f declined by 50 and 7 °C, 46 and 7 °C, respectively. In contrast, the alloy content in austenite of the material with 130 ppm B content decreases, its M_s and M_f was 37 °C and 32 °C higher than CGHAZ, respectively. The microhardness of HAZ was ranked in descending order as CGHAZ, FGHAZ, ICHAZ, and SCHAZ. Differently, the microhardness of CGHAZ and FGHAZ showed an increasing trend with the rise of B content but exhibited a decreasing trend with the rise of t_8/5.