Comparative Study of the Tempering Behavior of Different Martensitic Steels by Means of In-Situ Diffractometry and Dilatometry

Martensitic steels are tempered to increase the toughness of the metastable martensite, which is brittle in the as-quenched state, and to achieve a more stable microstructure. During the tempering of steels, several particular overlapping effects can arise. Classical dilatometric investigations can only detect effects by monitoring the integral length change of the sample. Additional in-situ diffractometry allowed a differentiation of the individual effects such as transformation of retained austenite and formation of cementite during tempering. Additionally, the lattice parameters of martensite and therefrom the tetragonality was analyzed. Two low-alloy steels with carbon contents of 0.4 and 1.0 wt.% and a high-alloy 5Cr-1Mo-steel with 0.4 wt.% carbon were investigated by dilatometry and in-situ diffractometry. In this paper, microstructural effects during tempering of the investigated steels are discussed by a comparative study of dilatometric and diffractometric experiments. The influence of the chemical composition on the tempering behavior is illustrated by comparing the determined effects of the three steels. The kinetics of tempering is similar for the low-alloy steels and shifted to much higher temperatures for the high-alloy steel. During tempering, the tetragonality of martensite in the steel with 1.0 wt% carbon shifts towards a low carbon behavior, as in the steels with 0.4 wt.% carbon

FEM Modelling of the Distortion of the Blank Case Hardened Gear Blanks due to Chemical Banding

In this study, a FEM process-chain simulation model is presented for the prediction of distortion of blank and case-hardened SAE 5120 (EN 20MnCr5) steel gear blanks. For this purpose, the evolution of the banded microstructure stemming from the continuous casting process was traced by computer simulations of subsequent shape rolling, forging and machining steps. The calculated flow-net was imported into the in-house heat treatment simulation module empowered with the recently developed "Anisotropic Transformation Strain (ATS)" model which enables the inclusion of the effect of banded microstructure on distortion. Then, both blank and case-hardening processes were simulated and verified experimentally. The results indicate good predictions of the dishing directions and dishing-free cutting strategy in both cases; the dishing magnitude is predicted well in blank-hardening simulations while the quality of the prediction is reasonable in case-hardening

A multiscale perspective on the kinetics of solid state transformations with application to bainite formation

We give an excerpt of recent developments in the experimentally benchmarked modeling of bainite formation in the press hardening process. As the press hardening process poses a heavily multi-parameter dependent modeling challenge, we focus on three main branches which complement each other. We emphasise the combination of basic sharp interface and phase field models with pragmatically adapted multi phase field models and experimentally parametrized implementations of the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami model. In the basic thermodynamic modeling part, we review fundamental aspects of displacive and diffusional-displacive transformations to predict dominant transformation morphologies. These results provide a link to multi-phase-field implementations which allow to simulate isothermal bainitic transformations, supported by available material data from thermodynamic databases. Excellent agreement with experiments, e.g. scanning electron microscopy for the transformed bainite in the high-carbon steel 100Cr6 shows the value of these model implementations. The further connection to Johnson-Mehl-Avrami models offers to extend the understanding to transformation plasticity for the press hardening steel 22MnB5