Abstract
Description on the kinetics of austenite-pearlite and austenite-martensite transformations in connection with temperature variation and also of the elastic-plastic stresses in the course of quenching of steel was made. The volume fractions of the structures in addition to the plastic strain and the hardening parameter were regarded as internal variables, and an emphasis was placed on the metallurgical considerations on the nucleation and the growth of the phases to obtain the evolutional equations of the variables. Finite element formulations based on the weighted residual method and the principle of virtual work were presented for the analyses of the heat conduction with phase transformations and the stress and strain, respectively.
As an example, the theory was applied on a solid cylinder of carbon steel cooled from above its eutectoid temperature. Several kinds of experiments were carried out on temperature change and the variation in the structural distribution was observed by microscopy and the residual stresses were measured by the Sachs' method and by X-ray diffraction technique to verify the present theory.
