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Microstructure and Properties of a Low Carbon Bainitic Steel Produced by Conventional and Inverted Two-Step Austempering Processes

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Abstract

The microstructure evolution and strain hardening behaviour of a low-carbon carbide-free bainitic steel prepared by either single-step austempering (420 °C or 365 °C), conventional two-step austempering (420 °C then 365 °C) or inverted two-step austempering (365 °C then 420 °C) treatments were investigated. The results show that when the total isothermal holding time was the same, the inverted two-step austempering treatment (first completing bainitic transformation at low-temperature and then annealing at high-temperature austempering) led to the highest toughness (30.7 GPa%) due to the finer bainitic microstructure and higher fraction of film-like retained austenite. Grain refinement and transformation-induced plasticity allowed the material to achieve high ductility without sacrificing strength. Comparing single-step austempering at 365 °C with the inverted two-step austempering process indicates that annealing at a higher temperature after completion of the bainitic transformation resulted in better tensile properties because of a lower dislocation density and more stabler retained austenite. In addition, the samples heat-treated by the conventional two-step austempering process exhibited slower bainite transformation kinetics and the worse tensile properties than the sample which was heat-treated using a single-step austempering treatment at 365 °C or the one which was heat-treated using an inverted two-step heat treatment. Through the analysis of the orientation relationships, it is observed that the original austenite and the bainitic plates mainly followed the K-S orientation relationships regardless of whether the bainite plates were formed in the first or the second heat-treatment step.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial supports from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada and China Scholarship Fund, National Nature Science Foundation of China (Nos. 52104381 & 52004192), Nature Science Foundation of Hubei (No. 2021CFB127) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2021M702539). Electron microscopy was carried out at the Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy (CCEM), a national facility supported by NSERC, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, under the MSI program, and McMaster University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430081, China

    Junyu Tian, Guang Xu & Mingxing Zhou

  2. Central Research Institute of BaoShan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., Shanghai, 201900, China

    Wei Wang

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L8, Canada

    Xiang Wang & Hatem Zurob

  4. Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4M1, Canada

    Xiang Wang

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  1. Junyu Tian
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  2. Wei Wang
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Correspondence to Wei Wang or Guang Xu.

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Tian, J., Wang, W., Xu, G. et al. Microstructure and Properties of a Low Carbon Bainitic Steel Produced by Conventional and Inverted Two-Step Austempering Processes. Met. Mater. Int. 29, 1298–1310 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12540-022-01316-3

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