Review
Metallurgy & Metallurgical Engineering
Lu-yan Sun, Xiang Liu, Xi Xu, Shu-wei Lei, Hui-gai Li, Qi-jie Zhai
Summary: This article reviews the application and behavior of Nb in high-strength low-alloy (HSLA) steel, focusing on microstructure optimization, grain refinement, and precipitation behavior of Nb-containing phases. Nb plays an important role in promoting ferrite and bainite formation, inhibiting austenite grain growth and recrystallization, and providing significant strengthening contribution in ferrite/bainite.
JOURNAL OF IRON AND STEEL RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Junfeng Yuan, Yang Xiao, Na Min, Wei Li, Sixin Zhao
Summary: This study investigates the morphological evolution of carbonitrides and their effect on grain boundary pinning during pseudo-carburizing in a Nb-Ti-Al microalloyed steel. The presence of three complex precipitates containing Nb, Ti, and Al was observed in samples treated at different temperatures and times. The NbC and TiN precipitates played a crucial role in inhibiting the growth of austenite grains by pinning grain boundaries, with the TiN precipitates offering high thermal stability and the NbC precipitates being small in size. The characteristics of the precipitates had an impact on the size of the austenite grains.
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Siying Song, Junyu Tian, Juan Xiao, Lei Fan, Yuebiao Yang, Qinpan Yuan, Xiaolong Gan, Guang Xu
Summary: This study investigated the effect of strain rate and vanadium content on the hot ductility of low-carbon microalloyed steels through hot tensile tests. The results show that low strain rate leads to poor hot ductility, while high strain rate improves it. Increased vanadium content results in decreased hot ductility at low temperatures, but slightly improves it at high temperatures.
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Arnab Chakraborty, Richard F. Webster, Sophie Primig
Summary: This study investigates the hierarchical martensite substructure evolution post-quenching of microalloyed Nb and NbMo steels. The results show that Nb steel exhibits a finer substructure, while NbMo steel shows wider laths with frequent auto-tempered precipitates near dislocations.
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
B. C. Zhou, S. F. Liu, H. H. Wu, J. H. Luan, J. M. Guo, T. Yang, Z. B. Jiao
Summary: The effects of Ni and Al contents and ratios on the precipitation, mechanical properties, and deformation behavior of NiAl-strengthened steels were systematically studied. The results show that increasing Ni and Al contents promotes the formation of discontinuous precipitation. The steels with different Ni and Al contents and ratios exhibit high tensile strengths but significantly different ductilities and fracture behaviors. The size of precipitates affects the work hardening capability, with small precipitates enhancing and large precipitates reducing it. Increasing the Ni/Al ratio improves the ductility and fracture behavior of the steels.
MATERIALS & DESIGN
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Andreas Hegetschweiler, Aljosha-Rakim Jochem, Anna Zimmermann, Johannes Walter, Thorsten Staudt, Tobias Kraus
Summary: Different colloidal particle characterization methods were examined for determining the particle size distribution of particles extracted from steels, with a focus on niobium and titanium carbonitride particles in microalloyed steels. Analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) and hollow fiber flow field-flow fractionation (HF5) provided high-quality size distributions and valuable insights for alloy design, while dynamic light scattering (DLS) was found to lack resolution. Discussions included topics on converting and comparing size distributions obtained from various measurement principles for broadly distributed particle systems, as well as the role of surfactants in sample preparation.
PARTICLE & PARTICLE SYSTEMS CHARACTERIZATION
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Yingying Li, Liye Zhang, Dijun Long, Liming Yu, Huijun Li
Summary: The study found that the ODS steel containing zirconium had finer and more uniformly dispersed precipitated particles with complex lattice structures, which could effectively inhibit the migration of grain boundaries. In addition, the zirconium-containing ODS steel exhibited a finer and more uniform grain morphology, significantly improving the mechanical properties of the steel at room temperature.
Article
Metallurgy & Metallurgical Engineering
Zhi-jun Gao, Guang-fei Pan, Yu Song, Shui-ze Wang, Xiao-yu Ye, Xin-ping Mao
Summary: The combination of mechanical and fatigue properties is crucial for the practical application of titanium microalloyed steel in the automotive field. The fatigue behavior of four Ti microalloyed high-strength beam steels with different Ti contents was studied. The results showed that the Ti content has a significant effect on fatigue properties, especially in high Ti content steel.
JOURNAL OF IRON AND STEEL RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL
(2023)
Article
Metallurgy & Metallurgical Engineering
Ke Zhang, Xin-jun Sun, Zhao-dong Li, Kun Xu, Tao Jia, Zheng-hai Zhu, Xiao-yu Ye, Jun-yu Kang, Qi-long Yong
Summary: A model was established to describe the thermodynamics and kinetics of (Ti, V)C precipitates in Ti-V microalloyed steels, which was verified by experimental results. By decreasing the Ti/V ratio, the complete-dissolution temperature, equilibrium volume fraction, and nucleation temperature of MC precipitates all decrease monotonically. Both theoretical calculations and experimental results confirm the reliability and accuracy of the model for (Ti, V)C precipitates.
JOURNAL OF IRON AND STEEL RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Jiapeng Sun, Bingqian Xu, Zhenquan Yang, Jing Han, Ningning Liang, Ying Han, Jinghua Jiang, Aibin Ma, Guosong Wu
Summary: This study successfully improves the strength, ductility, and corrosion resistance of Mg-13Al alloy by implementing a concept called hierarchical precipitate embedded fine grain microstructure. The enhancement of mechanical properties is mainly attributed to the synergistic effect of fully recrystallized fine grains and hierarchical beta phase precipitates.
JOURNAL OF ALLOYS AND COMPOUNDS
(2021)
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Qinglong Liu, Junyu Tian, Wenting Wei
Summary: In this study, a model for predicting the phase content of tempered high carbon steels was proposed based on thermal analysis, TEM, and XRD characterization. The isoconversional method was employed for kinetics analysis, and the model was validated by experimental results.
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Qing Yuan, Zhongbo Li, Qingxiao Zhang, Guang Xu
Summary: In this study, a new architecture of ultrafine grain (UFG) steel with coarsen bimodal size distribution was achieved through high-temperature short time annealing process. The mechanical properties of the UFG steel, including tensile strength and elongation, were enhanced without sacrificing much strength, thanks to the formation of intragranular Nb(C, N) particles. These particles stimulated and accumulated geometrically necessary dislocations (GNDs), which counteracted the strength decrease caused by coarsen ferrite grains.
MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING A-STRUCTURAL MATERIALS PROPERTIES MICROSTRUCTURE AND PROCESSING
(2023)
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Louis Weber, Johannes Webel, Frank Muecklich, Tobias Kraus
Summary: This passage introduces a new method for determining the number densities of nanoscale precipitates in macroscopic samples. The method combines matrix dissolution technique (MDT) and atom probe tomography (APT), and has been tested on niobium and niobium-titanium microalloyed steels. The results show the comparison between the number densities obtained from APT and MDT, as well as the limitations of each method in detecting particles of different sizes.
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Engineering, Mechanical
Yumeng Zhang, Yixuan Hu, Huabing Li, Yipeng Gao, Yabo Wang, Hao Feng, Yao Shen, Kolan Madhav Reddy, Zhouhua Jiang, Xiaodong Wang, Mingwei Chen
Summary: Delicate control of detrimental brittle AlN precipitates is essential for enhancing the applications of high nitrogen steels. Stacking faults in nano-sized AlN precipitates can be activated by martensitic transformation, which allows for accommodating the transformation stresses and strains at the precipitate/matrix interfaces. This finding provides new guidelines for mitigating the harmful effects of AlN precipitates in high nitrogen steels and reducing production costs.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PLASTICITY
(2023)
Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Chen Gu, Colin Scott, Fateh Fazeli, Michael J. Gaudet, Jing Su, Xiang Wang, Nabil Bassim, Hatem Zurob
Summary: The microstructural evolution during coiling and its effects on the mechanical properties of a vanadium microalloyed steel were studied. Nano precipitates nucleated during coiling at 500°C were heterogeneous in distribution and mainly contained V and N. The tensile flow curves showed extended elastic-plastic regions due to the microstructural heterogeneity and microscopic residual stresses. The precipitation strengthening effect was offset by softening caused by bainite aging and dislocation recovery.
MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING A-STRUCTURAL MATERIALS PROPERTIES MICROSTRUCTURE AND PROCESSING
(2023)