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Trang 2STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES
OF ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH
STEELS
A symposium sponsored by theMETALLURGICAL SOCIETY OF AIME and the
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR TESTING AND MATERIALS
Cleveland, Ohio, Oct 22, 1963
Price $11.00; to Members $7.70
Published by the AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR TESTING AND MATERIALS
1916 Race St., Philadelphia 3, Pa.
Reg U S Pat Off.
ASTM Special Technical Publication No 370
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Trang 3© by American Society for Testing and Materials 1965
Trang 4F O R E W O R D
The papers in this volume were presented at a Symposium on Steels With
Yield Strengths Over 200,000 psi sponsored by the Panel on Structural
Materials for Airframes and Missiles of the ASTM-ASME Joint Committee
on Effect of Temperature on the Properties of Metals, and the Structural
Materials Committee, Institute of Metals, Metallurgical Society of AIME
The Symposium was held on Oct 22, 1963, in Cleveland, Ohio
F M Richmond, of Universal-Cyclops Steel Corp., and J W Welty, of
Solar Aircraft Co., were the chairmen of the morning session E E
Reyn-olds, of Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp., and J J Heger, of U S Steel Corp.,
presided over the afternoon session
Trang 5NOTE—The Society is not responsible, as a body, for the statements
and opinions advanced in this publication.
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Trang 6C O N T E N T S
PAGE Introduction 1
Relationships Between Microstructure and Toughness in Quenched and Tempered
Ultrahigh-Strength Steels—A J Baker, F J Lauta, and R P Wei 3
Discussion 23
Relationships Between Structure and Properties in the 9Ni-4Co Alloy System—
J S Pascover and S J Matas 30
Discussion 45
High-Strength Stainless Steels by Deformation at Room Temperature—S Floreen
and C R Mayne 47
An Evaluation of the 18Ni-9Co-5Mo Maraging Steel Sheet—D L Corn 54
The Metallurgy and Properties of Cold-Rolled Am-350 and Am-355 Steels—T H.
McCunn, G N Aggen, and R A Lula 78
Discussion 93
Fracture Micromechanics in High-Strength Steels—Bani R Banerjee 94
Discussion 116
The Effect of Solidification Practice on the Properties of High-Strength Steels—
C M Carman, R W Strachan, D F Armiento, and H Markus 121
Discussion 143
High-Strength Steel Forgings—H J Henning 147
Ausform Fabrication and Properties of High-Strength Alloy Steel—W W
Ger-berich, A J Williams, C F Martin, and R E Heise 154
Thermomechanical Treatments Applied to Ultrahigh-Strength Bainites—D Kalish,
S A Kulin, and M Cohen 172
Trang 7RELATED ASTM PUBLICATIONS
Properties of Basic Oxygen and Open Hearth Steels, STP 364 (1963).
Stress Corrosion Cracking of Austenitic Chromium-Nickel Stainless Steels, STP 264 (1960).
Chemical Composition and Rupture Strengths of Super-Strength Alloys, STP 170-C
Trang 8STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
INTRODUCTIONThe increasing demands of the military
for improved performance of structural
materials for space, land, and deep ocean
environments has resulted in an intensive
activity in the development, evaluation,
and prototype testing of a broad range
of materials including oxides, carbides,
aluminum, titanium, and even gold A
significant portion of this activity has
been devoted to high-strength steels
Recognizing the scope of this activity
and the need to assemble into one
semi-nar the more recent advances in the
development and application of
high-strength steels, the Panel on Structural
Materials for Airframes and Missiles
of the Joint Committee of ASTM and
ASME, and the Structural Materials
Committee of the Institute of Metals
Division of the Metallurgical Society
of AIME, organized this Symposium
on Steels With Yield Strengths Over
200,000 psi
Until recently, steels having yield
strengths in excess of 200,000 psi were
not considered suitable as materials of
construction, because fabrication and
inspection techniques were not
suffi-ciently sophisticated to permit full
utilization of these high strengths, which
at that time were accompanied by low
ductility and low toughness Recently,
however, major developments have
occurred not only in alloy development,
which has permitted the achievement
of higher levels of ductility and
tough-ness, but also in inspection and
fabrica-tion techniques that permit the full
utilization of higher strengths that arenow obtainable
The papers presented at this posium included descriptions of newsteels (or new concepts for makingsteels) having yield strengths in excess
sym-of 200,000 psi, and good ductility andtoughness Specifically mentioned arethe new maraging steels, higher strengthand higher toughness martensitic steels,steels strengthened by thermomechanicaltreatments, and steels strengthened bycryogenic treatments Progress has beenmade in the understanding of the illu-sive property known as toughness, andtwo papers are presented summarizingthe state of art in this area Also theeffect of melting and processing on highstrength properties, the characteristics
of specific products—namely, forgingsand fasteners—and the fabrication of thenew high-strength steels are discussed
of the transportation vehicles that thereader will be using as a personal means
of conveyance within the next 10 years
1
Trang 9This page intentionally left blank
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Trang 10RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MICROSTRUCTURE AND TOUGHNESS IN QUENCHED AND TEMPERED ULTRAH1GH-STRENGTH STEELS
BY A J BAKER, 1 F J LAUTA, 1 AND R P WEI 1
SYNOPSIS
An investigation was made of a number of 0.30 and 0.40 per cent carbon alloy steels to determine the relationships between their fracture toughness properties and their internal microstructures The plane-strain fracture tough- ness of the steels was measured after tempering quenched material in the tem- perature range 300 to HOOF A thin section transmission electron micros- copy study was carried out on the tempered materials.
From the fracture toughness studies it was concluded that all the materials behaved similarly and that alloying elements (carbon and silicon) had little influence on the general relationship between tensile strength and toughness in these fully hardenable steels It was found that the fracture toughness remained low at low tempering temperatures but improved rapidly once a critical tem- pering temperature, characteristic of the particular steel, was reached.
The microscopy study showed that major microstructural changes occurred
in the tempering range where the rapid increase in toughness was observed.
At low tempering temperatures the defect structure of the as-quenched tensite remained unchanged, and continuous films of carbide were formed in the boundaries of the martensite In the critical tempering range the carbide films were spheroidized and the defect structure of the matrix removed or modified by recovery processes On the basis of these observations, it was con- cluded that the low fracture toughness of the steels in a lightly tempered condi- tion was due to their high defect densities and the presence of carbide films at boundaries Only when these features were removed or modified did toughness increase.
mar-In recent years there has been a grow- loy steels with carbon contents in the ing demand for materials of very high range of 0.3 to 0.5 per cent Quenched strength for aerospace applications such and tempered low-alloy steels already
as rocket motor casings This demand has have many uses both as structural stimulated research aimed at the de- rials and, at higher strength levels, as ma- velopment of ultrahigh-strength steels, chine parts When their yield strengths that is, steels with useable yield strengths are raised to the strength level men-
mate-of more, than 200,000 psi; and an im- tioned, there is the major problem mate-of portant part of this research has been the maintaining an adequate level of tough- study of quenched and tempered low-al- ness that will meet the design require-
i Technologists, U S Steel Corp., Applied mentS Pkced UP°n them'
Research Laboratory, Monroeville, Pa The present investigation was carried
3
Trang 11STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
out to determine the fracture-toughness
capabilities of these steels at the
ultra-high-strength level and to attempt to
relate their properties to microstructure
The investigation was based on three 0.40
per cent carbon steels and one 0.30 per
cent carbon steel, and the effects of
both chemical composition and
temper-ing treatment on plane-strain fracture
toughness were examined
To study the relationship of
micro-structure to fracture toughness, a parallel
metallographic investigation was made
using thin-section transmission and
replica electron-microscopy techniques
were hot-rolled to a 1-in plate after bebeing heated to 2300 F Steel D was cast
as a 300 Ib, 8 by 8-in ingot that was sequently reduced by rolling to a 1-in
sub-plate
Oversize 0.505-in.-diameter tensionspecimens were rough-machined from theplate or bar materials, austenitized for
£ hr at 1700F and oil-quenched Thespecimens were then tempered for times
up to 4 hr in the temperature range 400
to HOOF and air-cooled After heattreatment, the specimens were finish-machined to 0.505-in.-diameter tensionspecimens
*.L CO1 Mn 0.74 0.77 0.74 0.84
VEPOSI
PER P
0.019 0.009 0.005 0.007
TIONS CEN1
S
0.026 0.008 0.006 0.009
OF SI Si
0.27 0.27 1.60 1.59
^EELS Ni 1.79 1.16 1.87 2.04
INVES Cr 0.89 0.73 0.83 2.04
3TIGAr Mo 0.26 0.26 0.37 0.51
FED, V
0.10 0.055
Al 0.044 0.03 0.092 0.055
" Consumable Electrode Vacuum Remelted.
Materials and Method:
The chemical composition of the four
steels investigated is shown in Table 1
The composition of steels A and B is
within the specification limits for AISI
4340 steel, except that steel B is slightly
deficient in nickel The lower phosphorus
and sulfur content of steel B, compared
to that of steel A, is probably a result of
the consumable-electrode vacuum-remelt
process by which it was produced Steel
C is a high-silicon modification of AISI
4340, with a small vanadium addition,
and it corresponds to the material
com-monly designated as 300M Steel D is an
experimental laboratory-made material
Steel A was received as l^-in.-diameter
annealed bar stock, and test specimens
were machined directly from this Steels
B and C were received as 7- and 5-in
blooms, respectively, and these blooms
Notched tension specimens were pared by rough machining 6-in.-longcylinders of 0.8 or 1.05-in.-diameter fromthe plate or bar material These speci-mens were given heat treatments identi-cal with those given the smooth tensionspecimens After heat treatment, thespecimens were machined to either 0.750
pre-or 1.00-in diameter and notched Thedepth of the machined notch was chosen
so that after a subsequent introduction
of a 0.030-in.-deep circumferential tigue crack, the area of the remaininguncracked material would be 50 per cent
fa-of the gross cross-sectional area Fatigueprecracking was accomplished in an en-gine lathe, the tailstock being offset tointroduce a bending moment
Specimens for transmission electronmicroscopy were taken from the broken
tension specimens Small pieces | by \ by
0.1-in thick were cut out and ground on
Trang 12BAKER ET AL ON MICROSTRUCTURE AND TOUGHNESS
TABLE 2—MECHANICAL PROPERTIES—FRACTURE TOUGHNESS
2706 261 242
21 23 45 39
48
53
51 105 114 117 179
YS,
ksi 214
223
222 212
193
Steel B
TS,
ksi 296
263
256 238
208
Sic
in.-lb/in.2 /48 152 43
(51
\55 129 125 142 139
206
193
212 209
269
255
242 232
Sic in.-lb/in.2
48 45
(52
\50 /49
\53
55
[78 J73 [59
!08 99 100 107 214
YS,ksi
205
212 215
179
184 174 170
2556
242
230fr
225 196 193
Sic lb/in.2
in.-88 90
87 91 83 /89
a YS = yield strength; TS = tensile strength.
6 Extrapolated value.
a wet belt to a thickness of about 0.020
in These specimens were then chemically
polished in a warm solution of 50 per cent
phosphoric acid (H3PO4) and 50 per cent
hydrogen peroxide (H202) to reduce their
thickness to less than 0.005 in This
0.005-in material was electropolished
successively in 1:10 mixture of perchloricacid and methyl alcohol and a solution ofchromic acid in acetic acid to preparethin foils suitable for transmission elec-tron microscopy (I).2 Formvar-carbon
2 The boldface numbers in parentheses refer
to the list of references appended to this paper.
Trang 13STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
FIG 1—Effect of Tempering Temperature on Strength and Fracture Toughness of Steels A and B.
FIG 2—Effect of Tempering Temperature on Strength and Fracture Toughness of Steels C and D.
replicas for electron microscopy were
prepared both from heat-treated material
and from the fracture profiles of the
broken notched rounds The fracture pro-"
files were obtained by coating the
frac-6
ture surfaces with electrodepositednickel, sectioning perpendicular to thefracture surface, and polishing the profile
by standard metallographic preparationmethods
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Trang 14BAKER ET AL ON MICROSTRUCTURE AND TOUGHNESS
RESULTS
Mechanical Properties:
Table 2 is a compilation of the strength
and toughness properties of the steels
examined The effect of tempering
treat-ment on yield strength, tensile strength,
and plane-strain fracture toughness is
shown in Figs 1 and 2 By comparing the
properties of steels A and B with those of
steels C and D at a given tempering
temperature, the influence of silicon and
It is important to note the effect ofnotch acuity on plane-strain fracture-toughness evaluations The effect of tem-pering temperature on plane-strain frac-ture toughness shown in Figs 1 and 2 can
be obtained only with fatigue-precrackedspecimens To emphasize this point, acomparison is made in Fig 3 between thenotched-tensile strengths obtained withfatigue-precracked specimens and thoseobtained with specimens having ma-chined notches with a 0.0015-in root
FIG 3—Schematic Showing Effect of Notch Acuity on Fracture Toughness Test Results.
chromium in retarding the rate of
tempering can clearly be seen
All four steels show a similar type of
behavior in the effect of tempering
treat-ment on plane-strain fracture toughness
In each case, the fracture toughtness
re-mains low and almost constant at low
tempering temperatures but undergoes
a sharp increase in a critical tempering
range characteristic of the particular
steel The actual level of fracture
tough-ness at low tempering temperatures
de-pends on the individual steel
composi-tions Those with lower phosphorus and
sulfur contents have a higher level of
toughness
radius The tests were carried out on anexperimental 0.40 per cent carbon, low-alloy steel with a composition similar tothat of 300M steel With machinednotches, the variation of notched tensilestrength with tempering treatment fol-lows a variation similar to that of yieldstrength, which suggests that this type
of behavior is controlled by the initiation
of a crack at the root of these relativelydull notches Apparent values of Slc com-puted on the basis of these results wouldindicate a more complex variation of 9icwith tempering treatment than is ac-tually the case Using fatigue precrackedspecimens, the actual variation of gtc is
Trang 158 STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES or ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
characterized by a region of almost
con-stant and low fracture toughness at low
temperatures and a region of rapidly
increasing fracture toughness above a
critical tempering temperature
The results shown in Figs 1 and 2
indi-cate that the critical tempering
tempera-tures, above which fracture toughness
increases rapidly, are dependent on the
alloy content of the steels Silicon has a
particularly strong influence in that, for
steels A and B, containing 0.25 per cent
the relationships exhibited by steels Band C in Fig 4 These steels differ in sili-con content, having 0.25 and 1.50 percent, respectively, but it is apparent thatthe higher silicon content of steel C hasnot led to any improvement in the bal-ance of fracture toughness to strengthover that attainable in steel B
The systematic relationships shown inFig 4 created interest in the associatedmicrostructural changes, and conse-quently an electron metallographic study
FIG 4—Relationship Between Plane-Strain Fracture Toughness and Tensile Strength for Four
Steels.
silicon, the critical temperature is 600 F,
whereas for steels C and D, containing
1.50 per cent silicon, the critical
tempera-ture is 900 F
So that the four steels can be compared
at equal strength levels, the data shown
in Figs 1 and 2 are replotted in Fig 4
with fracture toughness as a function of
tensile strength The sharp change in
fracture-toughness behavior is again
ap-parent: above a tensile strength level of
about 240,000 psi the steels have low
fracture toughness, whereas at lower
tensile strengths the toughness increases
A further conclusion can be drawn from
was made on these materials after varioustempering treatments It was possible toconsider all four steels as a group despitetheir varying composition, and themetallographic study was further facili-tated by the fact that each steel exhibitedtwo distinct levels of fracture toughnessabove and below the 240,000-psi strengthlevel It was possible, therefore, to predictthe critical tempering-tfemperature rangewithin which important structuralchanges were likely to occur Thus, while
it was still necesasry to examine thestructures developed throughout thewhole tempering sequence, an intensive
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Trang 16BAKES ET AL ON MicsosTRuorasE AND TOUGHNESS 9
Pic, 5—Electron Micrographs of Steel D Specimens Anstenitized at 1700 F and Oil-Quenched
Trang 1710 STKUCTUSE AND PKOPERTIES OF ULTRAHIGH-STKENGTH STEELS
(top) X 50,000 (bottom) X 150,000
FIG 6—Electron Micrographs of a Steel D Specimen Tempered 1 hr at 600 F.
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Trang 18BAKER ET AL ON MICROSTRUCTURE AND TOUGHNESS 11
investigation of microstructure could be
concentrated on the narrow range likely
to be significant
Microstructure:
The metallographic studies showed
that all four steels underwent similar
microstructural changes during
temper-ing To avoid unnecessary repetition, a
detailed discussion of the effects of
tem-pering on microstructure will be given for
steel D only; discussion of the results for
steels A, B, and C will be restricted to
those parts of the temperature sequence
in which important changes occurred, or
in which their behavior differed from
that of steel D
The martensitic structure of steel D is
shown in Fig 5 The martensite has a
predominantly plate-like morphology,
with rrfany of the plates lying in parallel
groups The plates are about %n wide and
about 4/i long Their thickness is difficult
to estimate accurately because of the
uncertainty in knowing the angle at
which a plate meets the foil surface; but
the thinnest plates measured were about
1000 A Two types of lattice defect are
present within the plates, namely, a high
dislocation density and many microtwins
The dislocation density is about 10"
lines/cm2, which is comparable with that
of heavily cold-worked metals (2) In
many areas of the foils, the dislocation
density is too high to resolve the
in-dividual dislocations, and a mottled type
of contrast results instead The
micro-twins are closely spaced at about 200 A
and are as narrow as about 100 A in
width The twinned structure observed is
similar to that found in high-carbon,
plain-carbon steels (3)
In addition to dislocations and
micro-twins, the martensite contains many
small precipitate particles as shown in
Fig 5 (bottom) The precipitate particles
are small rods, approximately 50 A in
diameter, that usually lie parallel to the
twin-boundary direction, which suggeststhat they may nucleate in the twinboundaries In addition, there are a num-ber of smaller particles that lie across thetwins and often link together the twin-boundary particles These smaller parti-cles have a ragged appearance and areprobably nucleated on dislocations Otherparticles are formed at the martensiteboundaries, and these also connect withadjacent particles in the matrix
The precipitate particles observed are
a feature of the martensite produced inthick-section, oil-quenched material, andthey do not appear in thin-section, water-quenched specimens This fact wouldsuggest that the particles are created byauto tempering during quenching; since
the M g temperature of steel D is tively low (about 550 F), the particlesare probably e-carbides, as this is thecarbide formed at low tempering temper-atures (4) However, it was not possible
rela-to identify them by selected-area tron diffraction using either thin foils orextraction replicas; in the thin foils, theprecipitate volume fraction was too small
elec-to produce an identifiable diffractionpattern, whereas with extraction replicasthe density of particles was insufficient toobtain a pattern The difficulty experi-enced in extracting these particles,coupled with the fact that they are small
in size and general shape, suggests thatthey may have a high degree of coherencywith the matrix
Tempering steel D at 600 F resulted inthe formation of further quantities ofprecipitate The preferred sites for pre-cipitate formation were the martensiteplate boundaries and the twin bounda-ries The structure is shown in Fig 6
(top), where the martensite boundary
pre-cipitate can be seen to constitute an most continuous film The precipitate atthis tempering temperature had sufficientvolume fraction to produce an electron-diffraction pattern, and it was identified
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Trang 1912 STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
FIG 7—Electron Micrographs of a Steel D Specimen Tempered 4 hr at 1050 F.
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Trang 20BAKER ET AL ON MICROSTRUCTURE AND TOUGHNESS 13
as 6-carbide The twin-boundary
precipi-tate at this stage of tempering is about
500 A wide and must have incorporated
several twins during its sidewise growth
At high magnification, both the
martens-ite boundary and the twin-boundary
precipitates exhibit a substructure of fine
parallel striations (Fig 6 (bottom)), which
terial, do not appear in the temperedstructure and must therefore dissolve asthe larger particles grow
On tempering at higher temperatures,
up to 900 F, increasing quantities of bide were formed, but above 1000 F sev-eral important changes occurred
car-Figure 7 (top) shows the 1050-F
tem-FIG 8—Electron Micrograph of a Steel D Specimen Tempered 4 hr at 1050 F (X 100,000).
may be due to fine-scale faulting within
the carbide structure The c-carbide on
the twin boundaries probably retains
some coherency with the matrix at this
stage of tempering, and the faulting
could be ihe result of a strained mode of
growth Carbides are known to contain
strains when formed at low tempering
temperatures (5) The small precipitate
particles linking the twin boundaries,
which are a feature of quenched
ma-pered structure, and it can be seen thatthe carbide precipitates are discretespheroidized particles at the martensiteboundaries, rather than continuous films
The carbide formed at this temperingtemperature was identified as iron car-bide (Fe3C) The original martensiteboundaries can still be seen between thecarbides, and the martensite retains itsplate-like morphology
A further important structural change
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Trang 2114 STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES or ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
at 1050 F was that the initial, randomly
tangled dislocation mass showed evidence
of some recovery for the first time In
Fig 7 (bottom), which is a higher
mag-nification area than that of Fig 7 (top),
groups of regular, fine-mesh, dislocation
networks can be seen within the
marten-site The formation of these dislocation
planation for the spheroidal morphology
of the carbide precipitate formed Since
Fe3C has a lower density than iron, amass transfer within the matrix is neces-sary if the Fe3C particles are to growand change shape rapidly This masstransfer requires the diffusion of ironatoms within the matrix and this, in
FIG 9—Electron Micrograph of a Steel C Specimen Tempered 1 hr at 800 F (X 80,000).
networks indicates that dislocation climb
and consequent recovery are occurring at
this tempering temperature Since
dis-location climb is a vacancy-controlled
process, the changes in dislocation
ar-rangement also indicate that vacancy
generation and migration must be rapid
at this temperature
The availability of vacancies at this
tempering temperature provides an
ex-turn, is controlled by vacancies Hence,major changes in carbide morphology canonly occur at a temperature sufficientlyhigh to provide a large supply of vacan-cies Below this temperature, the carbidesare restricted to easy nucleation sites,such as boundaries, and a slow andrelatively strained type of growth alongthe boundaries results
The spheroidization of the martensite
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Trang 22BAKER ET AL ON MICROSTRTJCTURE AND TOUGHNESS 15
boundary precipitates is accompanied by
a similar spheroidization of the twin
boundary precipitates, as shown in Fig
8 In addition, it can be seen that, as the
twin boundary precipitate spheroidizes
and leaves a region of matrix, the traces
of the twin boundaries tend to disappear
also This disappearance of the twin
The microstructural changes in steel Cfollowed a similar sequence to those inSteel D The martensite contained all thefeatures already discussed for steel D,and at tempering temperatures up to
800 F, progressively thicker precipitates
of carbide were formed both at the tensite boundaries (Fig 9) andwithin the
mar-FIG 10—Electron Micrograph of a Steel C Specimen Tempered 1 hr at 800 F (X 140,000).
boundaries suggests that the twin
bound-ary and matrix-carbide interface are
closely coupled at this tempering
tem-perature The coupling probably comes
about by the incorporation of the twin
boundary into the precipitate interface
as the precipitate loses coherency during
growth Once incorporated, the twin
boundaries disappear as the carbides
withdraw from a region of the matrix
twins (Fig 10) Again, as in steel D, therewas no change in dislocation arrange-ment up to this temperature At 1000 F,however, spheroidization of the Fe3Cformed along the martensite boundariesand twins occurred, and dislocation re-covery resulted in network formation
The spheroidization of the carbides atthe martensite boundaries is shown in
Fig 11 (top); the corresponding changes
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Trang 23STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES or ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
FIG 11—Electron Micrographs of Steel C Specimens Tempered 1 hr at 1000 F.
Trang 24at the twin boundaries are shown in Fig
11 (bottom).
In steels A and B, the changes in
microstriicture followed a similar
se-quence to that observed in steels C and
D, but the changes occurred at lower
tempering temperatures At the lowest
tempering temperature, a continuous
film of e-carbide was produced at the
martensite and twin boundaries, and at
vated dislocation climb results in theformation of networks which are, in ef-fect, low-angle boundaries As thenetworks develop, the martensitic matrix
is divided into many small subgrains ofsimilar orientation With further temper-ing, the subgrain boundaries migrate tobecome higher angle boundaries and, ul-timately, a well-developed fine-grainedstructure is developed within the mar-
FIG 12—Electron Micrograph of a Steel A Specimen Tempered 1 hr at 600 F (X50,000).
higher tempering temperatures (600 F)
the e-carbide was replaced by Fe3C (Fig.
12) At 800 F the boundary Fe3C began
to spheroidize (Fig 13 (top)), and the
matrix showed signs of the changes
re-sulting from dislocation recovery (Fig 13
(bottom).
The structure shown in Fig 13
(bot-tom) illustrates an early stage in the
microstructural changes produced in the
matrix as dislocation recovery and
migra-tion occurs Initially, thermally
acti-tensite matrix The creation of the
sub-grain structure shown in Fig 13 (bottom)
is thus the initial stage in the lization of the steel
recrystal-At higher tempering temperatures, therecrystallization process proceeds morerapidly Figure 14 shows the advancedstage reached at 1000 F
Fracture Profile Metallography:
Figure 15 shows replica micrographstaken from the fracture-surface profiles of
BAKER ET AL ON MICROSTRUCTURE AND TOUGHNESS
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Trang 2518 STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
FIG 13—Electron Micrographs of a Steel A Specimen Tempered 1 hr at 800 F.
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Trang 26BAKER ET AL ON MICROSTRTJCTURE AND TOUGHNESS 19
steel C, tempered at 600 (top) and 1000 F
(bottom) It can be seen that, for material
in the 600-F tempered condition, the
fracture path tends to contain many more
flat facets than that for material
tem-pered at 1000 F; and these facets are
bide In the higher-temperature temperedmaterial the profile shows evidence ofgreater plastic deformation and tearingalong the fracture path, and the fracturepath shows little tendency to follow anydistinct microstructural feature
FIG 14—Electron Micrograph of a Steel A Specimen Tempered 1 hr at 1000 F (X60,000).
often oriented parallel to the carbides at
the martensite boundaries or twin
bound-aries The fracture surface of the steel
tempered at 1000 F has a more roughened
appearance, and there is no obvious
cor-relation between the fracture path and
the microstructure It appears from the
fracture profiles that cracks propagate in
the low-temperature tempered material
along a succession of short, almost
straight paths and that these paths tend
to follow suitably oriented boundary
car-DISCUSSIONThe mechanical property results showthat both tensile strength and fracturetoughness are closely related to temper-ing treatment In each of the steels in-vestigated, there is a a decrease in tensilestrength as the tempering temperature isincreased, but the fracture toughness re-mains low until a critical temperaturerange is reached within which it increasesrapidly For the lower-silicon steels A and
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Trang 2720 STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES or ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
FIG 15—Fracture Profiles of Steel C Tempered 1 hr at 600 and 1000 F (X 10,000).
B, the fracture toughness improves for
temperatures above 600 F, whereas in the
higher-silicon steels C and D the increase
is retarded until a temperature of 900 F
is reached
The metallographic structures showthat the sharp rise in fracture toughnessoccurs at a temperature range in whichmajor structural changes take place Themost important of these changes are (1)
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Trang 28BAKER ET AL ON MICROSTRTJCTURE AND TOUGHNESS 21
the spheroidization of carbide precipitate
particles, and (2) the reduction or
redis-tribution of the defect structure of the
martensite
It is possible to correlate the changes
in mechanical properties with the
struc-tural changes by considering
qualita-tively the possible influences of
micro-structure on properties In the
marten-sitic condition, the steels exhibit a type
of microstructure in which yielding and
general ductility are likely to be very
limited The martensite is tetragonal
be-cause of the carbon contained in the
lat-tice, and the transformation produces a
high dislocation density In addition, the
many twin boundaries present will act as
barriers to dislocation movement
On tempering at low temperatures,
little relief from the embrittling features
can be obtained; the metastable
martens-ite begins to decompose and the
tetra-gonality is consequently reduced
How-ever, the carbon liberated is utilized in
the formation of almost continuous films
at the martensite boundaries and twin
boundaries These films appear to act as
preferred paths for crack propagation
through the structure, either by
provid-ing adjacent weak zones in the matrix or
by fracturing themselves Consequently,
while the tensile strength of the
marten-site falls, there is no accompanying
in-crease in fracture toughness
In the critical tempering range, several
changes occur that lead to improved
toughness First, continuous films of
car-bide are no longer produced at the
mar-tensite and twin boundaries; instead,
dis-crete rounded particles are formed there
Second, the dense dislocation array is
modified by recovery so that larger areas
of defect-free matrix are developed
Third, the twin boundary structure
dis-appears with the spheroidization of the
twin boundary carbides All these
changes are likely to lead to improved
toughness However, the over-all
densi-ties of carbides and dislocations remainrelatively high, so that the tensilestrength does not fall sharply, as thetoughness increases The phenomenon isessentially one of redistribution of micro-structural features rather than of theircomplete removal
While the observations on fracturepath emphasize the embrittling role ofboundary carbides, the potential tough-ening influence of dislocation recoverymay be equally valuable By freeing largeareas of the matrix from their defect con-tent and by generating a fine-grainedsubstructure, the dislocation changes arelikely to produce some beneficial effect ontoughness
It has been shown that silicon has astrong influence in retarding the majortempering reactions that lead to the de-velopment of high fracture toughness
As already discussed, the tural changes observed as carbide sphe-roidization and dislocation recovery arevacancy - controlled processes and canonly occur at temperatures high enough
microstruc-to provide rapid vacancy formation andmigration If silicon retards tempering,
it would seem, at first sight, that it mightexert its influence by inhibiting the neces-sary vacancy generation or mobility Amore likely explanation is provided by(1) the well-known fact that silicon doesnot form a simple carbide in steels, be-cause of the instability of silicon carbidewith respect to iron carbides, and (2) therecent observation that silicon is in-corporated into the e-carbide formedduring the early stages of tempering (6)
The presence of silicon in these carbides
is likely to reduce the rate at which theycan grow and hence to delay the processesthat will lead eventually to spheroidiza-tion
As long as the carbide dispersion mains stabilized and finely dispersed, andthe carbides are small enough to retainsome coherency with the matrix, the dis-
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Trang 2922 , STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
location array will have little freedom to
climb and recover Thus, the carbide
persion could, in effect, stabilize the
dis-location arrangement and prevent any
general migration
CONCLUSIONS
From the investigation of the changes
in mechanical properties that occur on
tempering and the accompanying
changes in microstructure, it is possible
to draw the following conclusions:
1 In the steels investigated, the
plane-strain fracture toughness shows a rapid
increase within a critical range of
temper-ing temperatures Below this range, the
fracture toughness remains almost
con-stant
2 There is a close relationship
be-tween mechanical properties and
micro-structure; fracture toughness, in
particu-lar, is very sensitive to structural changes
3 Good fracture toughness develops
only when certain important structuralchanges have occurred
4 The microstructural changes thatare of major importance in the improve-ment of fracture toughness are (a) theelimination of embrittling carbide films at
boundaries by spheroidization, and (b)
the redistribution and removal of the tice defect structure by recovery proc-esses
lat-5 The retarding influence on ing exerted by silicon delays the develop-ment of good fracture toughness by in-hibiting the essential microstructuralchanges necessary for its improvement
temper-6 Retarding the tempering process bythe addition of alloying elements doesnot lead to improved fracture toughness
at a given strength level While alloy tions enable higher strengths to be re-tained at higher tempering temperatures,the balance between strength and tough-ness is not improved
addi-REFERENCES
(1) P M Kelly and J Nutting, "Techniques
for the Direct Examination of Metals by
Transmission in the Electron Microscope,"
Journal of the Institute of Metals, Vol 87,
1958-59, p 385.
(2) A S Keh and S Weissmann, "Deformation
Substructure in Body-Centered Cubic
Metals," Electron Microscopy and Strength
of Crystals, Interscience, 1963, p 231.
(3) P M Kelly and J Nutting, "The
Morphol-ogy of Martensite," Journal of the Iron and
Steel Institute, Vol 197, 1961, p 199.
(4) B S Lenient, B L Averbach, and Morris
Cohen, "Microstructural Changes on
Tem-pering Iron-Carbon Alloys," Transactions,
American Society for Metals, Vol 46, 1954,
p 851.
(5) E V Kurdjumov and L Lyssak, "The Application of Single Crystals to the Study
of Tempered Martensite," Journal of the
Iron and Steel Institute, Vol 156, 1947, p 29.
(6) B G Reisdorf, "The Tempering teristics of Some 0.4 Percent Carbon Ulcra-
Charac-high-Strength Steels," Transactions, AIME,
Trang 30B R BANERJEE1—I am happy to
have the opportunity to discuss this
interesting paper The authors are to be
commended for their fine structural
characterizing of the final
vacancy-recovery-steps in these steels, and indeed
they confirm our own findings in this
respect
However, the authors' conclusions—
based on their fracture-property data
on these steels—tend to contradict much
that has been firmly established on these
steels over the past several decades To
suggest that the toughness of 4340 or its
modifications remain unchanged upon
tempering up to any temperature up
through 600 to 900 F, as the authors
allege (Figs 1 and 2 in their paper), is
contrary to the vast body of
metal-lurgical literature accumulated over the
years through much careful
experi-mentation with these materials
The authors have used fatigue-cracked
circumferentially notched round tension
specimens, and determined the critical
strain-energy release rate, or
crack-extension force values, presumably using
the Irwin approximation But this
approximation does not give the true
glc, but actually a lower bound of
9ic In order for this lower-bound value
to reasonably approach the true values,
the notch must always be sufficiently
sharp, and the plastic zone size must
remain small enough, relative to
speci-men geometry; furthermore, at the
lower toughness regions, loading axiality
becomes quite critical Considering all
1 Manager, Basic Research and Applied
Physics, Research Division, Crucible Steel
Company of America, Pittsburgh, Pa.
these factors, a sufficient number ofdatum points may be critical in revealingtrue trends in behavior
Therefore, I have taken the liberty tocalculate opening-mode fracture-tough-
ness values, KIC , from the authors'
glc data on their air-melt 4340 (Steel A)
on which they present the most completeset of datum points These calculated
KM values are plotted in Fig 16, along
with other recent literature data2 andsome Crucible research data3—all ob-tained on fatigue-cracked circumferen-tially notched round tension specimens
of air-melted 4340 The dotted line,drawn through these points, immediatelysuggests two significant trends which runcontrary to the authors' conclusions:
1 The toughness of air-melted 4340increases throughout the entire temper-ing range of 200 to 1000 F, rather than
"a region of about constant low ture toughness at the lower temperingtemperatures, and a region of rapidlyincreasing toughness," as suggested bythe authors A similar, continued tough-ness increase upon tempering air-melt
frac-4340 was also found by plane-stresstension tests performed with center-notched, fatigue-cracked sheet speci-mens.4
2 A discontinuity in the tempering curve is suggested in the
toughness-2 W A Backofen and M L Ebner, lurgical Aspects of Fracture at High Strength
"Metal-Levels," Watertown Arsenal, WALTR
310.24/5-4, May, 1963.
3 Unpublished results, Research Division, Crucible Steel Company of America, Pitts- burgh, Pa.
Trang 3124 STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
500-F (400 to 700 F) embrittlement behavior in both fatigue-cracked and
region brittle-boundary specimens, broken
The authors attribute their unique either under impact or slow-bend
condi-conclusions on fracture-toughness de- tions
pendence upon tempering and to the The l-in.-diameter round bars, which
FIG 16—Dependence of Plane-Fracture Toughness Upon Tempering of Air-Melt 4340.
employment of fatigue cracks in their
tests, thereby rejecting all prior
Charpy-impact literature data as inapplicable
However, in Fig 17 are plotted
fatigue-cracked Charpy-impact data on
con-sumable electrode vacuum-arc-melted,
4335-V from the recent literature,5 which
again confirms the 500-F embrittlement
the authors have used for their fracturetests, may, upon oil quenching, introducesufficient autotempering (due to theslack-quench effect) in the embrittling
8 "Investigation of Fracture Toughness in
High-Strength Alloys," Progress Report No 8,
WADD Contract AF33(616)-8165, ManLabs,
Inc., Cambridge, Mass., May, 1963.
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Trang 32DISCUSSION ON MlCROSTRUCTURE AND TOUGHNESS 25
FIG 17—Dependence of Sharp-Crack Charpy Impact Upon Tempering of Vacuum Arc-Melted
4335-V.
FIG 18—Influence of Notch Acuity on K lc Results for 300M Steel.
range of 4340 steels that recovery from tively lower toughness values observed
these structures may not be obtained y the authors (Fig 16)
until relatively high tempering tempera- In view of these, I would like to
sug-tures This may partly explain the rela- gest that, in employing these relativelyCopyright by ASTM Int'l (all rights reserved); Mon Dec 7 13:15:25 EST 2015Downloaded/printed by
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Trang 3326 STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
FIG 19—Comparison of K\ c Results From Several Sources.
new test schemes, we should cautiously
proceed to acquire a sufficiently large
body of data through different test
approaches before attempting to broadly
interpret results which violate a
sub-stantial, established body of literature
gained through general experience
A J BAKER, F J LAUTA, AND R P
WEI (authors)—Banerjee's comments
consist of a series of imputations
con-cerning the validity and interpretation
of the fracture toughness data presented
in our paper The comments appear to
be based on a combination of false
assumptions and a general disregard for
the principles of fracture toughness
testing To reply to them adequately, it
is necessary to deal with them in
se-quence and at some length
The fracture toughness parameter,
QIC , used in this paper, is clearly denned
by the Irwin-Orowan-Griffith mechanics analysis6 and requires noelaboration here glc designates thecritical strain energy release rate for theplane-strain opening-mode fracture It isrelated to the plane-strain stress-in-
fracture-tensity factor, KIC , by
where E = elastic modulus and v =
Poisson's ratio The practical ments for valid determinations of glc
require-or K lc were rigorously observed in ourexperiments Fatigue precracking was
6 G R Irwin, "Fracture Mechanics," tural Mechanics, Pergamon Press, New York,
Trang 34DISCUSSION ON MlCROSTRUCTURE AND TOUGHNESS 27
employed to ensure adequate notch
acuity
Specimen sizes were chosen to insure
adequate constraint; for example,
1-in.-diameter specimens were used for glc
measurements on Steel A (AISI 4340
steel) tempered at 800 F when
f-in.-diameter specimens were found to be
inadequate for this tempering treatment
Axiality of loading was good and
intro-duced errors of less than 10 per cent in
the 9ic values It should be noted that
poor alignment will accentuate any
embrittling phenomenon that may be
present, and consequent effects, such as
a purported 500-F embrittlement, are as
likely to be observed under these testing
conditions as any other Since the need
for fatigue precracking of specimens has
been recognized only recently, a
disagree-ment with previously published results
is expected A typical example is
pro-vided by Fig 18, comparing the
ap-parent KIC results reported by Carmen
et al7 with the authors' KIC data for
300M steel, which is Steel C in this
paper Such discrepancies are bound to
persist, moreover, if K^ c results are
com-puted and reported in complete
viola-tion of one or more of the fracture
mechanics requirements Banerjee's data
for AISI 4340 steel tempered at 1000 F,
shown in Fig 16, are an obvious example
of such violation
Regarding the specific comparison
between the KIC results of Backofen
and Ebner8 and those reported in this
paper for AISI 4340 steels, Fig 1, it was
suggested in our paper that comparisons
be made at equal tensile-strength levels,
and that proper allowances be made for
7 C M Carmen, D F Armiento, and H.
Markus, "Plane Strain Fracture Toughness
Measurements of High Strength Steels,"
Jour-nal of Basic Engineering, ASME, March, 1963,
p 87.
8 W A Backofen and M L Ebner,
"Metal-lurgical Aspects of Fracture at High Strength
Levels," Watertown Arsenal, WALTR 310.241
5-4, May, 1963.
differences in sulfur and phosphoruscontents, since they influence fracturetoughness Backofen and Ebner's results9
for this steel are replotted in Fig 19using the tensile strengths reported byShih et al.10 With sulfur and phosphoruslevels intermediate between Steels A and
B, the steel exhibits a plane-strain ture toughness intermediate betweenthat of Steels A and B The agreementwith our finding is, in fact, good
frac-A direct comparison between K IC
results and Charpy impact test results,
as suggested by Banerjee, should not beattempted, since the bases of the two
tests are quite different Whereas K^ c
characterizes the plane-strain mode fracture, the Charpy impact testmeasures the energy required to fracture
opening-a mildly-notched specimen in opening-a mode fracture with other attendantenergy losses Similarly, Kc or gc resultsfor sheet- or plate-type specimens arealso strongly influenced by the modes offracture, plane-stress versus plane-strain,
mixed-and comparisons with K IC values should
be made with caution The continued
increase of K c values with increasingtempering temperature, 300 F to 700 F,indicated by Banerjee had been ob-served previously by the authors.11
However, this behavior reflects cipally a change in fracture mode, asindicated by a change from 20 per centshear in the fracture for a 300-F temper-ing treatment to 100 per cent shear for
prin-9 Kic recalculated using Irwin's relationship;
Kic = 0.414 ff n\/D, where <rn is the nominal
notch tensile strength and D is the specimen
diameter Bueckner's relationship, used by Backofen and Ebner, uses a constant of ap- proximately 0.46.
10 C H Shih, B L Averbach, and Morris Cohen, "Some Effects of Silicon on the Mechani-
cal Properties of High Strength Steels,"
Trans-actions, American Society for Metals, Vol 48,
1956, p 86.
11 R P Wei, "Fracture Toughness Testing
in Alloy Development," Fracture Toughness
Testing and Its Applications, ASTM STP 381
Am Soc Testing Mats., 1964, to be published.
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Trang 3528 STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
tempering treatments above 600 F, in
O.lOO-in.-thick specimens
A 500-F embrittlement, or martensite
temper embrittlement per se, was not
indicated by our data, and Backofen
and Ebner8 reached the same conclusion
in their study The embrittlement
indi-cated by the discusser, Fig 16, results
in Charpy impact energy are regarded
as evidence of a significant change infracture toughness
Concerning the question of tempering in the 4340 steels (owing
auto-to the use of large section size specimens),
we must emphasize that essentially allthe fracture tests on the 0.40 per cent
FIG 20—Effect of Specimen Size on Fracture Toughness Test Results.
from an indiscriminate averaging of two
distinctly different sets of data, and the
use of an alternately contracted and
expanded scale for the tempering
tem-peratures Furthermore, the impact
and bend test data, Fig 17, do not
provide convincing substantiation of a
500-F embrittlement, unless the
slow-bend test results are ignored and the
minor changes (1 to 2 ft-lb variation)
carbon steels (A, B, and C) were ried out using f-in.-diameter specimens,and not l-in.-diameter specimens as thediscusser states Only in the case ofSteel A, tempered at 800 F, and Steel C,tempered at 1050 F, were l-in.-diameterspecimens used, since additional con-straint was required All the steelsstudied possess high hardenability andare fully hardened in a 1-in section
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Trang 36DISCUSSION ON MlCROSTRUCTTJRE AND TOUGHNESS 29
Figure 20 shows KI C data derived from
both f-in.- and ^-in.-diameter specimens
of Steel A.12 The close agreement
be-tween the two sets of values refutes the
suggestion that autotempering can have
12 F J Lauta, Unpublished data, U S Steel
Corp., Applied Research Laboratory,
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Trang 37RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES
IN THE 9NI-4CO ALLOY SYSTEM
BY J S PASCOVER1 AND S J MATAS1
SYNOPSIS The effects of alloy content and heat treatment on the strength and tough- ness of 9Ni-4Co alloy steels are discussed in detail The strength was deter- mined with standard tension specimens, while toughness was evaluated with various accepted, sharply notched specimen types.
Of the alloying elements used, carbon acted as the strongest embrittler but was necessary as a strengthener Silicon and the carbide-forming elements decreased toughness, particularly at higher carbon contents Hence, the use of silicon at other than residual levels was undesirable The addition of carbide- forming elements in appreciable amounts needed careful consideration Nickel was used in substantial amounts to improve toughness, while cobalt was added
to inhibit retained austenite formation consequent upon the high nickel tent Cobalt enhanced self-tempering effects, particularly for the lower carbon varieties.
con-Heat treatment strongly influenced the properties as a result of the tendant changes in the microstructure Isothermal transformation to lower bainite enhanced toughness in the 0.45%C, 9%Ni-4%Co high performance (HP) 9-4-45 steel The toughness was superior to that of tempered marten- site at equivalent strengths The properties of upper bainite were not as at- tractive as those of lower bainite Mixed structures composed of bainite and martensite lowered toughness.
at-The two commercial grades of the 9Ni-4Co alloy system, HP 9-4-25 and
HP 9-4-45, had a better combination of strength and toughness than other carbon-strengthened steels The self-tempering characteristics of the HP 9-4-25 grade and its inherent toughness contributed to high joint efficiences and formability in the as-welded condition No post-heat treatment of the welded joint was required.
The need for materials of high sistance to premature failure owing to strength-to-weight ratio is unquestion- pre-existing flaws Resistance to corro-
able Strength per se, however, is not a sive environments and to cyclic
fatigue-sufficient criterion for the use of a ma- type loading, as well as amenability to terial in many applications For highly fabrication, are additional requirements, stressed structural components, the Many approaches have been used to material must also exhibit a high re- obtain steels with both high strength and
adequate reliability (1-5) 2 This paper,
1 Research metallurgist and supervisor of high
strength steels, respectively, Research Center, 2 The boldface numbers in parentheses refer Republic Steel Corp., Cleveland, Ohio to the list of references appended to this paper.
30
Trang 38PASCOVER AND MATAS ON PROPERTIES or ALLOY STEELS 31
however, will be confined to a discussion
of an investigation aimed toward
op-timizing the properties of the
carbon-strengthened, low-alloy, high-strength
steels by balancing the composition The
final result of this study was the
devel-opment of 9Ni-4Co-XC steels3 which
contain basically about 7 to 9 per cent
Ni, 2 to 5 per cent Co and 0.15 to 0.50
per cent C (4-8)
The 9Ni-4Co alloy system exhibits a
wide range of properties For example,
ultimate tensile strengths as high as 300
ksi and, at lower strengths, impact
energies up to 80 ft-lb were obtained
The 9Ni-4Co alloy steels are amenable
to various processing techniques It wasfound that at a given strength level asignificant improvement in toughness can
be obtained through the use of a specialmelting practice, referred to as vacuumarc remelt carbon deoxidation (VAR-CDOX) practice4 (5,8,9) With thistechnique the product of deoxidation is agas instead of a solid reaction product,
as in conventional deoxidation practice
This alloy system is also responsive tothermal-mechanical treatments (1) Inparticular, both the strength and tough-ness can be increased by hot-cold work-
TABLE 1—COMPOSITIONS OF ALLOY STEELS INVESTIGATED, WEIGHT PER CENT.
0.45 0.28 0.40 0.40 0.36 0.35 0.43 0.41 0.46 0.45 0.41
0.25 0.35 0.30 0.70 0.70 0.90 0.02 0.21 0.21 0.21 0.33
0.10 0.10 0.90 0.25 0.27 1.30 0.01 0.03 0.24 0.44 0.82
8.00 8.00 1.80 1.80 1.80 8.00 8.00 7.29 7.38 7.38
0.30 0.50 5.00 0.80 0.80 0.95 0.09 0.34 0.20 0.24 0.22
0.30 0.50 1.30 0.25 0.35 0.40 0.08 0.28 0.19 0.21 0.19
0.10 0.10 0.50 0.20 0.14 0.19 0.12 0.08 0.08 0.12
4 0 0
4 0 0
3^04.0 0
2.0 7
4.0!
3.6 0
0 Typical alloy composition.
The lower carbon grade, referred to
commercially as HP 9-4-25, exhibits a
Charpy impact energy of 50 ft-lb at the
200 ksi yield strength level The higher
carbon grade, HP 9-4-45, on the other
hand, will develop 25 ft-lb of impact
energy at a yield strength of 250 ksi
Furthermore, the lower carbon varieties
can be welded in the quenched and
tempered condition (200 ksi strength
level) without preheat or postheat The
higher carbon compositions, however,
must be welded in the annealed condition
and fully post-treated to achieve joint
efficiencies in excess of 90 per cent at an
ultimate tensile strength of 290 ksi
3 The 9Ni-4Co-XC steels, designated
com-mercially as HP 9-4-X, are proprietary steels
of Republic Steel Corp.
ing (l) Such treatment involves the formation of austenite prior to thetransformation of austenite to martensite(1,2) or bainite
de-Although some information is available
in the literature on the effects of alloyingelements on the strength and toughness
of the 9Ni-4Co alloy system (4,8,10), nocomprehensive study has been published
Thus, this paper is concerned with theinfluence of composition as it relates tothe strength and toughness of the9Ni-4Co alloys when they are heat-treated to a tempered martensitic struc-ture In addition, the properties of the
HP 9-4-45 alloy steel, when heat-treated
to a bainitic microstructure, are
com-4 A proprietary melting practice of Republic Steel Corp.
Trang 3932 STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES or ULTRAHIGH-STRENGTH STEELS
The production-sized heats weremelted as 70 or 5-ton basic, electricarc-furnace heats and poured intoelectrode molds without additions ofmetallic deoxidizers During vacuumconsumable electrode remelting into24-in.-diameter crucibles, the steel wascarbon deoxidized, yielding a very clean,
pared to those obtained by tempering
martensite
MATERIALS AND PROCEDURE
Materials:
The chemical compositions of the heats
investigated are presented in Table 1
Specimens were austenitized, oil-quenched, refrigerated, and tempered at the tempering
tem-peratures indicated.
FIG 1—Influence of Carbon on Strength of HP 9-4-X Alloy Sytem.
They represent two basic types—150-lb
air induction heats (Si-Al deoxidized) and
commercial production-sized heats
(vac-uum arc remelted carbon deoxidized)
The 150-lb heats were melted as air
induction heats Using pure materials,
two 70-lb ingots were poured, forged to
2 by 2-in billets and subsequently
straightaway hot-rolled to appropriate
plate and sheet sizes
low gas content material (5,6,9) Thevacuum remelted ingot was then forged
to a 4 by 12-in slab product and rolled (2:1 cross roll) to the appropriateplate or sheet section thicknesses
hot-Procedure:
Oversized specimen blanks were cutfrom hot-rolled product, heat-treated,and then finish-ground to appropriate
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Trang 40PASCOVER AND MATAS ON PROPERTIES OF ALLOY STEELS 33
dimensions Standard sheet tensile
speci-mens were used for evaluating sheet
product The tensile strength of plate
material was evaluated by standard
round tensile specimens To evaluate
notch toughness, several types of
speci-mens were used (11)
em-Values are for longitudinal and transverse specimens from vacuum arc remelted carbon
de-oxidized heats.
FIG 2—Influence of Carbon on Charpy V-Notch Impact Energy of HP 9-4-45 Plate Tempered
at the Temperature Indicated.
The fatigue precracked impact
speci-men employed in this study was similar
in nearly all respects to the ASTM
standard Charpy V-notch specimen The
only difference lay in the fatigue crack
introduced at the V-notch root by a
device especially designed for the purpose
(12,13) In this case, the value reported as
W/A represents the unit work to failure
in a manner analogous, but not
neces-sarily identical, to the G c value
deter-mined from notched sheet specimens
a secondary influence on strength but isvery important in controlling toughness(6,14) The effect of carbon and alloycontent on strength, ductility, toughness,and tempering response of martensitewill be discussed in detail in this section
Effect of Carbon:
The effect of carbon on the strength
of tempered martensite in the 9Ni-4Coalloy system can be seen in Fig 1 Thestrength increase with increasing
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