Study on stable and meta-stable carbides in a high speed steel for rollers during tempering processes

A high speed steel (HSS) was studied for rollers in this work. The steel was quenched at 1150A degrees C and tempered at 520A degrees C. The phase structures of the steel were determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), and the hardness of specimens was measured. The volume fraction of carbides was counted by Image-Pro Plus software. The typical microstructures were observed by field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). Stable and meta-stable carbides were deduced by removing the existing phases one by one in the Fe-C equilibrium calculation. It is found that the precipitated carbides are bulk-like MC, long stripe-like M2C, fishbone-like M6C, and daisy-like M7C3 during the tempering process. The stable carbides are MC and M6C, but the meta-stable ones are M2C, M7C3, and M3C.