Achieving High Plasticity and High Toughness of Low-Carbon Low-Alloy Steel through Intercritical Heat Treatment
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Experimental Procedure
3. Results and Discussion
3.1. Microstructure Characterization
3.2. Mechanical Properties
4. Conclusions
- (1)
- The intercritical quenching temperature had a significant impact on the content, domain size, morphology, and distribution of retained austenite. With increasing intercritical quenching temperature, the content of retained austenite increased, the domain size increased first and then decreased, the distribution extended from the grain boundary to the martensite lath boundary, and the morphology developed from blocks to strips;
- (2)
- During the critical heat treatment process, significant element aggregation occurred, and a large amount of C and Mn from the surrounding structure accumulated in the retained austenite, which made it stable at room temperature and even low temperatures;
- (3)
- The characteristics of retained austenite had a small effect on the tensile properties, but they had a significant impact on low-temperature impact properties. The impact energy of IQ720 at −40 °C reached 110 J, while the impact energy of IQ740 with the highest retained austenite content was only 40 J, which was closely related to the stability of the retained austenite;
- (4)
- The crack formation absorption energy of IQ740 was relatively small, and the corresponding fiber region of the impact fracture was small. This indirectly indicated that retained austenite transformed into brittle high-carbon martensite, which did not hinder crack growth but became the nucleation site of the crack. The retained austenite in IQ720 was stable at low temperatures, which hindered crack propagation and improved the impact performance of the steel;
- (5)
- The use of medium manganese steel is greatly limited by its welding performance. Subsequent research may mainly focus on improving the welding performance of medium manganese steel to meet the needs of industrial applications. Appropriately reducing the manganese content may be a good solution.
Author Contributions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Huang, L.; Liu, J.; Deng, X.; Wang, Z. Achieving High Plasticity and High Toughness of Low-Carbon Low-Alloy Steel through Intercritical Heat Treatment. Metals 2023, 13, 1737. https://doi.org/10.3390/met13101737
Huang L, Liu J, Deng X, Wang Z. Achieving High Plasticity and High Toughness of Low-Carbon Low-Alloy Steel through Intercritical Heat Treatment. Metals. 2023; 13(10):1737. https://doi.org/10.3390/met13101737
Chicago/Turabian StyleHuang, Long, Jia Liu, Xiangtao Deng, and Zhaodong Wang. 2023. "Achieving High Plasticity and High Toughness of Low-Carbon Low-Alloy Steel through Intercritical Heat Treatment" Metals 13, no. 10: 1737. https://doi.org/10.3390/met13101737