• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.25 no.11
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• pp.583-589
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• 2015

This paper presents a study on the room- and low-temperature impact toughness of hypoeutectoid steels with ferrite-pearlite structures. Six kinds of hypoeutectoid steel specimens were fabricated by varying the carbon content and austenitizing temperature to investigate the effect of microstructural factors such as pearlite volume fraction, interlamellar spacing, and cementite thickness on the impact toughness. The pearlite volume fraction usually increased with increasing carbon content and austenitizing temperature, while the pearlite interlamellar spacing and cementite thickness mostly decreased with increasing carbon content and austenitizing temperature. The 30C steel with medium pearlite volume fraction and higher manganese content, on the other hand, even though it had a higher volume fraction of pearlite than did the 20C steel, showed a better low-temperature toughness due to its having the lowest ductile-brittle transition temperature. This is because various microstructural factors in addition to the pearlite volume fraction largely affect the ductile-brittle transition temperature and low-temperature toughness of hypoeutectoid steels with ferrite-pearlite structure. In order to improve the room- and low-temperature impact toughness of hypoeutectoid steels with different ferrite-pearlite structures, therefore, more systematic studies are required to understand the effects of various microstructural factors on impact toughness, with a viewpoint of ductile-brittle transition temperature.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.8-14
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• 2016

This article presents a study on the tensile properties of hypoeutectoid steels with different ferrite-pearlite microstructures. Nine kinds of hypoeutectoid steel specimens were fabricated by varying carbon content and isothermal transformation temperature. The microstructural factors such as ferrite & pearlite fraction, interlamellar spacing, and cementite thickness were quantitatively measured and then tensile tests were carried out on the specimens in order to investigate the correlation of the microstructural factors with strength and ductility. The pearlite volume fraction usually increased with decreasing transformation temperature, while the pearlite interlamellar spacing and cementite thickness decreased mostly with decreasing transformation temperature, irrespective of carbon content. The tensile test results showed that the yield and tensile strengths of all the steel specimens increased and their ductility was also improved as the transformation temperature decreased. For the steel specimens investigated, the difference in the transformation temperature dependence of strength and ductility could be explained by the fact that the variation in pearlite fraction with transformation temperature noticeably affected various microstructural factors such as pearlite interlamellar spacing and cementite thickness associated with pearlite fracture mechanism such as void initiation, cementite necking, and cracking.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.417-422
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• 2015

In this study, low-carbon hypoeutectoid steels with different ferrite-pearlite microstructures were fabricated by varying transformation temperature. The microstructural factors such as pearlite fraction and interlamellar spacing, and cementite thickness were quantitatively measured and then Charpy impact tests conducted on the specimens in order to investigate the correlation of the microstructural factors with impact toughness and ductile-brittle transition temperature. The microstructural analysis results showed that the pearlite interlamellar spacing and cementite thickness decreases while the pearlite fraction increases as the transformation temperature decreases. Although the specimens with higher pearlite fractions have low absorbed energy, on the other hand, the absorbed energy is higher in room temperature than in low temperature. The upper-shelf energy slightly increases with decreasing the pearlite interlamellar spacing. However, the ductile-brittle transition temperature is hardly affected by the pearlite interlamellar spacing because there is an optimum interlamellar spacing dependent on lamellar ferrite and cementite thickness and because the increase in pearlite fraction and the decrease in interlamellar spacing with decreasing transformation temperature have a contradictory role on absorbed energy.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.14 no.3 s.75
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• pp.215-223
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• 2005

A numerical analysis program is developed by FDM scheme for the prediction of microstructural transformation during heat treatment of steels. In this study, multi-phase model was used fur description of diffusional austenite transformations in low-alloy hypoeutectoid steels during cooling after austenitization. A fundamental property of the model consisting of coupled differential equations is that by taking into account the rate of austenite grain growth, it permits the prediction of the progress of ferrite, pearlite, and bainite transformations simultaneously during quenching and estimate the amount of martensite also by using K-M eq. In order to simulate the microstructural evolution during tempering process, another Avrami-type eq. was adopted and method for vickers hardness prediction was also proposed. To verify the developed program, the calculated results are compared with experimental ones of casting product. Based on these results, newly designed heat treatment process is proposed and it was proved to be effective for industry.