• 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.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.25-31
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• 2018

A boiler system transforms water to pressured supercritical steam which drives the running of the turbine to rotate in the generator to produce electricity in power plants. Materials for building the tube system face challenges from high temperature creep damage, thermal fatigue/expansion, fireside and steam corrosion, etc. A database on the creep resistance strength and steam oxidation of the materials is important to the long-term reliable operation of the boiler system. Generally, the ferritic steels, i.e., grade 1, grade 2, grade 9, and X20, are extensively used as the superheater (SH) and reheater (RH) in supercritical (SC) and ultra supercritcal (USC) power plants. Currently, advanced austenitic steel, such as TP347H (FG), Super304H and HR3C, are beginning to replace the traditional ferritic steels as they allow an increase in steam temperature to meet the demands for increased plant efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to provide the state-of-the-art knowledge on boiler tube materials, including the strengthening, metallurgy, property/microstructural degradation, oxidation, and oxidation property improvement and then describe the modern microstructural characterization methods to assess and control the properties of these alloys. The paper covers the limited experience and experiment results with the alloys and presents important information on microstructural strengthening, degradation, and oxidation mechanisms.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.292-303
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• 1998

Recent study has demonstrated that some magnetic properties are sensitive to the microstructural state of material. The ASTM A 508 Gr. 3 reactor pressure vessel steel has various microstructural changes including martensitic and bainitic phases, and various sizes of grain and precipitates in the weld heat-affected zone (HAZ). To correlate the microstructural state with Barkhausen noise (BN), specimens were prepared through simulating various weld thermal cycles using a thermal simulator. The conventional magnetic properties, i.e. coercive force, remanence and maximum induction, did not change significantly, whereas the BN amplitude and energy during a magnetization cycle changed markedly with microstructural state. The BN increased with increasing grain and carbide sizes, and the tempered bainite structure showed higher BN parameter than tempered martensite.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.417-425
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• 2007

The ferritic 9Cr-1Mo-V-Nb heat-resisting steel was experimentally studied in order to characterize its microstructural evolution during creep-fatigue by coercivity measurement. The creep-fatigue test was conducted at $550\;^{\circ}C$ with the tensile holding time of 60s and 600s, respectively. The coercivity decreased until the failure and the hardness monotonously decreased for the whole fatigue life. As the life fraction of creep-fatigue increased, the $M_{23}C_6$ carbide coarsened following the Ostwald ripening mechanism. However, the MX carbonitrides did not grow during creep-fatigue due to so stable at $550\;^{\circ}C$. The width of martensite lath increased because of the dislocation recovery at the lath boundaries. The magnetic coercivity has an influence on the microstructural properties such as dislocation, precipitates and martensite lath boundaries, which interpreted in relation to microstructural changes. Consequently, this study proposes a magnetic coercivity to quantify the level of damage and microstructural change during the creep-fatigue of ferritic 9Cr-1Mo-V-Nb steel.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.16-23
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• 2012

Research into the development of high strength (1 GPa) and superior formability, such as total elongation (10%), and stretch-flangeability (50%) in hot-rolled steel was conducted with a thermomechanically controlled hot-rolling process. To improve the overall mechanical properties simultaneously, low-carbon steel using precipitation hardening of Ti-Nb-V multimicroalloying elements was employed. And, ideal microstructural characteristics for the realization of balanced mechanical properties were determined using SEM, EBSD, and TEM analyses. The developed steel, 0.06C-2.0Mn-0.5Cr-0.2(Ti + Nb + V), consisted of ferrite as the matrix phase and second phase of granular bainite with fine carbides (20-50 nm) in both phases. The significant factor of the microstructural characteristics that affect stretch-flangeability was found to be the microstructural homogeneity. The microstructural homogeneity, manifest in such characteristics as low localization of plastic strain and internally stored energy, was identified by grain average misorientation method, analyzed by electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) and hardness deviation between the phases. In summar, a hot-rolled steel having a composition 0.06C-2.0Mn-0.5Cr-0.2(Ti + Nb + V) demonstrated a tensile strength of 998 MPa, a total elongation of 19%, and a hole expansion ratio of 65%. The most important factors to satisfy the mechanical property were the presence of fine carbides and the microstructural homogeneity, which provided low hardness deviation between the phases.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.56 no.12
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• pp.845-853
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• 2018

To understand the effect of microstructural factors (i.e., the size of ${\alpha}$ phase, equiaxed vs bimodal structure) on high cycle fatigue (HCF) and fatigue crack propagation (FCP) behaviors of mill-annealed Ti-6Al-4V (Ti64) alloy, three specimens of EQ (equiaxed)-8 (8 indicates the size of ${\alpha}$ grain), BM (bimodal)-8, and BM-16 were studied. The uniaxial HCF and FCP tests were conducted at an R ratio of 0.1 under sinusoidal fatigue loading. The microstructural influence (i.e., EQ vs BM) was not significant on the tensile properties of mill-annealed Ti64 alloy, and showed an increase in tensile strength and elongation with decreasing gauge thickness from 50 mm to 1.3 mm. The microstructure, on the other hand, affected the resistance to HCF substantially. It was found that the EQ structure in mill-annealed Ti64 has better resistance to HCF than the BM structure, as a result of different crack initiation mechanism. Unlike HCF behavior, the effect of microstructural features on the FCP behavior of mill-annealed Ti64 was not significant. Among the three specimens, BM-16 specimen showed the highest near-threshold ΔK value, probably because it had the greatest slip reversibility with large ${\alpha}$ grains. The effect of microstructural factors on the HCF and FCP behaviors of mill-annealed Ti64 alloy are discussed based on fractographic and micrographic observations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.271-272
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• 2008

This paper is concerned with the prediction of micro structural changes of pearlitic steel wire during clod drawing. The most important microstructural aspects are ferrite/cementite interlamellar spacing, cementite shape and thickness, since those are crucial factors to determine the mechanical strength of pearlitic steel. In this study, a couple of new algorithms to predict the above microstructural changes are developed based on the deformation histories of macro material points obtained from finite element simulations for pearlitic steel wire drawing. Some predictions are shown. The special features of the algorithms developed in this study are discussed in details.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.474-480
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• 1998

Microstructural characteristics of semi-solid state processed hypereutectic Al-Si alloys have been investigated. Main concern of the present study is to investigate the effects of P and Sr addition on the size and morphology change of the primary Si particles. Refinement of the primary Si particles was observed with the addition of P and Sr at the early stage of semi-solid state processing, but such a refining effects became negligible resulting in Si particles with a near-spherical morphology with continuous stirring. This implies that the microstructural transformation mechanism became more dependent to stirring effects than to the alloying effects during semi-solid state processing. Brittle fracture and agglomeration were proposed as the mechanisms for microstructural alterations during semi-solid state processing.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.263-266
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• 2009

Transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) steel consisting of ferrite, austenite, and bainite phases was regarded as an excellent candidate for automotive applications due to the good combination of ductility and strength. The aim of the present study was to understand the microstructural characteristics of ultrafine grained (UFG) TRIP low-carbon steel fabricated via equal channel angular pressing accompanied with intercritical- and isothermal-annealing treatments. When compared to coarse grained counterpart, only the volume fraction of austenite phase in UFG TRIP steel remained unchanged, but all other microstructural variables such as size and morphology were different. It was found that UFG TRIP steel showed the homogeneous distribution of each constituent phase, which was discussed in terms of annealing treatments done in this study.