In the continuous casting of steels, surface transversal cracks are often found. These defects may severely influence the final quality of the products. The evolution of transversal V-shaped cracks with different depth on the surface of a continuously cast steel slab during hot rolling was studied. The artificial V-shaped cracks were made on the surface. The rolling process parameters from an industrial rolling mill have been used as a reference. The speci- mens of rolled workpiece in intermediate slabs were obtained after different rolling passes. The morphology of sur- face crack and microstructure evolution in the rolling process were investigated by optical microscopy. The results show that the depth of surface transversal crack gradually decreased with the increase of rolling passes. The grain size of ferrite and pearlite on the sample surface also gradually reduced. The microstructures around cracks with the dif ferent depth are almost identical, without direct correlation with the initial crack depth.
Yan-zhao LUOJiong-ming ZHANGQiang LIUMao-kang LIYi-tong HANYi-fei CAO
A new plastic deformation process for gray cast iron named cylinder covered compression （CCC） was developed. By CCC process, gray cast iron （GCI） specimens, which are embedded in steel cylinders, were hot compressed up to 80% reduction in height without the cracking problem. It was clearly observed that the uniform distribution of directional graphite flakes appeared after more than 45 % reduction hot compression. The strength, ductility, and microhardness of GCI after 80% reduction deformation were significantly enhanced： the tensile strength varied from 117 MPa to 249 MPa, while the total elongation varied from 0 to 5.2%, and the microhardness varied from 153 HV to 217 HV. It was shown that the tensile fracture surface presented ductility characters after more than 45% reduction hot deformation.
The warm compression tests were performed on the eutectoid steel to investigate the evolution of cementite morphology. Several processing parameters, such as temperature, strain rate and reduction, were changed to analyze the effect of each parameter on spheroidization of cementite. The results showed that the warm compression promoted the fragmentize and the spheroidization of lamellar cementites. When the specimen was compressed with reduction of 50% at 700 ℃ and in the strain rate of 0.01 s-1, the excellent spheroidized cementite was obtained. The mechanism of fragmentation and spheroidization of lamellar cementites during compression was discussed by using transmission electron microscope. The formation of spheroidized cementite was related to the time of compression process. The fragmentize of lamellar cementites was due to the extension of sub-grain boundary in the cementite. The spheroidization of cementite depended on the diffusion of carbon atoms at the tip of bended and breakup cementite.
WU Tao, WANG Ming-zhi, GAO Yu-wei, LI Xiao-pu, ZHAO Yu-cheng, ZOU Qin (State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, Hebei, China)
Warm deformation was investigated for steels containing carbon of 0. 45%,0. 79%, and 1. 26% respeetively with martensite starting structure, using Gleeble 3500 thermomechanical simulator at the temperature ranging from 873 K to 973 K and the strain rate ranging from 0.1 s^-1 to 0. 001 s^-1. The effect of carbon content on the deformation activation energy, Z value and the deformation resistance was analyzed, The results showed that the deformation resistance decreased with increasing carbon content. The peak stress of the steel containing earbon of 1.26% was decreased by 16.2% compared to the steel containing carbon of 0.45% under the same condition. This may be attributed to the weakening effect of solid solution strengthening which outweighs the precipitation strengthening of cementite.
LI Qun WANG Tian-sheng LI Hong-biao GAO Yu-wei LINing JING Tian-fu
In order to investigate the effect of initial microstructure on warm deformation behavior, some specimens of 45 steel were annealed and some quenched. Then the specimens were isothermally compressed on a Gleeble 3500 machine. The deformation temperature range was 550 to 700 ℃ and the strain rate range was 0.001 to 0.1 s-1. An optical microscope (OM) and a transmission electron microscope (TEM) were used to study the microstructures. The results show that the microstructure of annealed specimens is ferrite and pearlite and that of quenched specimens is martensite. The flow stress of quenched specimens is higher than that of annealed ones at 550 ℃ when strain rates are greater than 0.001 s-1. However, at 600 to 700 ℃ and strain rate of 0.001 s-1, the whole flow curves of quenched specimens are below that of annealed ones. Under the rest conditions, the flow stress of quenched specimens is higher at the beginning of compression and then the opposite is true after the strain is greater than a critical value. The microstructure examination proves that the tempering and dynamic recrystallization easily occur in the specimens with martensite during warm compression, which results in the above phenomena.
ZHAO Xin1, YANG Xiao-ling2, JING Tian-fu3 (1. The Sixth Department, Zhengzhou Institute of Aeronautics, Zhengzhou 450015, Henan, China
Various isothermal compression tests are carried out on an ultrahigh carbon steel （1.2% C in mass percent）, initially quenched or spheroidized, using a Gleeble-3500 system. The true stress is observed to decrease with increas ing temperature and decreasing strain rate. The true stress of the initially quenched steel is lower than that of the ini- tially spheroidized steel at high deformation temperature （700 ~C） and low deformation strain rate （0. 001 s-1 ）. The value of the deformation activation energy （Q） of the initially quenched steel （331.56 kJ/mol） is higher than that of the initially spheroidized steel （297.94 kJ/mol）. The initially quenched steel has lower efficiency of power dissipation and better processability than the initially spheroidized steel. The warm compression promotes the fragmentation and the spheroidization of lamellar cementites in the initially quenched steel. The fragmentation of lamellar cementites is the spheroidizing mechanism of the eementites in the initially quenched steel. Results of transmission electron microscope investigation showed that fine grains with high angle boundaries are obtained by deformation of the initially quenched steel.
Tao WUYu-wei GAOMing-zhi WANGXiao-pu LIYu-cheng ZHAOQin ZOU
