Effect of copper additions in directly quenched titanium–boron steels.pdfVIP

J Mater Sci (2007) 42:9453–9459 DOI 10.1007/s10853-007-1963-5 Effect of copper additions in directly quenched titanium–boron steels S. K. Ghosh Æ A. Haldar Æ P. P. Chattopadhyay Received: 23 February 2007 / Accepted: 21 June 2007 / Published online: 31 July 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007 Abstract The present study concerns the effect of copper in the austenite. The microalloying elements (Ti, B) additions on the microstructural evolution and mechanical expectedly shift the transformation temperature ranges properties of directly quenched Ti–B steels. Ti and B are downwards resulting into delay in c fi a transformation added as microalloying elements with an aim of achieving [1]. adequate austenite hardenability and Cu is added to retard When the deformation of austenite is completed at a the austenite (c) fi ferrite (a) transformation. Therefore, temperature lower than the recrystallisation temperature, the microalloying and Cu additions together allow the deformation bands dividing the austenite grains into transformation of austenite to occur at a lower temperature, numerous sub-grains are created [2, 3]. Thus, the large resulting in a finer microstructure containing martensitic amount of heterogeneity in the deformed austenite results constituents. The direct-quenching route is adopted with an in a finer microstructure facilitating precipitation harden- aim of facilitating the nucleation of the constituent phases ing, tempering resistance and secondary hardening [4, 5]. from the deformed austenite. In order to circumvent the Deformation within the intercritical region followed by hot-shortness due to the Cu addition, 0.79 wt% Ni has been direct-quenching (DQ) induces