Abstract
This study deals with austenite grain growth during high-temperature carburization of an Al- and Nb-microalloyed case-hardening steel. The grain size after carburization-simulated heating for 5 h at 1050°C decreased with the increase in the cooling rate from hot forging-simulated heating for 1 h at 1250°C. The increase in cooling rate led to the decreases in the volume fractions and sizes of AlN and Nb(C,N) particles precipitated during cooling, and AlN disappeared when the cooling rate increased to 16°C/min, while Nb(C,N) still slightly exited at 16°C/min. Because of oversaturation caused by cooling within a finite time, further precipitation occurred during the subsequent normalization for 3 h at 1070°C, resulting in the formation of AlN–Nb(C,N) combined particles. When the cooling rate increased, the volume fraction and number density of these combined particles increased while their size decreased. Therefore, a higher cooling rate causes a larger pinning effect on grain growth during carburization; thus grain size after carburization decreased with the increase in cooling rate. Transmission electron microscopy confirmed the formation of a coherent AlN–Nb(C,N) interface due to good lattice matching between the crystal planes of AlN (1120) and Nb(C,N) (220). This led to the preferential nucleation of AlN on the Nb(C,N) particles, thereby forming stable AlN–Nb(C,N) particles.
STEM-EDS maps of precipitates in samples after normalization, that was performed after cooling from forging-simulated heating under different conditions, namely (a) water quenching, and furnace cooling at (b) 16, (c) 4, and (d) 0.7°C/min. (Online version in color.)
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