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Surface nanocrystallization of C45E4 steel by ultrafast electropulsing-ultrasonic surface treatment

  • Metallic materials
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Abstract

The effect of high-energy electropulsing-ultrasonic surface treatment (EUST) on the surface properties and the microstructure evolution of C45E4 steel was investigated. Refined microstructure and reduced surface roughness were obtained owing to the surface nanocrystallization process. Compared with the ultrasonic surface treatment (UST), the impact depth of the surface strengthened layer was increased by 40% to 700 μm after EUST. The average grain size of the surface nanocrystallization layer was reduced to 30-50 nm. The surface roughness of the C45E4 steel was reduced to 0.25 μm, and the surface microhardness was dramatically enhanced to 460 HV. The improvement of microstructure and micro-hardness at ambient temperature was likely attributed to the acceleration of atomic diffusion and the enhancement of plastic deformation ability in the surface strengthened layer under the influence of electropulsing. Due to the electropulsing-assisted ultrasonic strengthening effect, the surface nanocrystallization in this ultrafast procedure was noticeably enhanced.

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Acknowledgements

This project is supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (50571048) and Research & Development Funding Project of Shenzhen (JCYJ20120619152539900). The authors would like to thank Tsinghua University for supporting this work. The authors would also like to thank the editors and reviewers for their valuable comments and for making the paper more readable.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Long Chen  (陈龙), Haibo Wang, Dan Liu, Xiaoxin Ye & Guoyi Tang  (唐国翌)

  2. Advanced Materials Institute, Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Long Chen  (陈龙), Haibo Wang, Dan Liu & Xiaoxin Ye

  3. Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials of Ministry of Education, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Guoyi Tang  (唐国翌)

Authors
  1. Long Chen  (陈龙)
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  2. Haibo Wang
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  3. Dan Liu
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  4. Xiaoxin Ye
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  5. Guoyi Tang  (唐国翌)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Guoyi Tang  (唐国翌).

Additional information

Funded by the Natural Science Foundation of China (No.50571048) and the Research & Development Funding Project of Shenzhen (No.JCYJ20120619152539900)

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Chen, L., Wang, H., Liu, D. et al. Surface nanocrystallization of C45E4 steel by ultrafast electropulsing-ultrasonic surface treatment. J. Wuhan Univ. Technol.-Mat. Sci. Edit. 32, 1426–1432 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11595-017-1764-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11595-017-1764-x

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