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Studies of 4Cr5MoSiV1 die steel suggest that under appropriate conditions, additions of rare earth (RE) can enhance tensile property. This improvement is apparently due to the more uniform distribution of carbides and the enhancement of precipitation strengthening after RE additions. In this present work, the effect of the RE addition on the carbides evolution and tensile property of 4Cr5MoSiV1 steel with various RE contents (0, 0.018, 0.048 and 0.15 wt %) were systematically investigated. The two-dimensional detection techniques such as optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to investigate the carbides evolution of as-cast, annealed and tempered with RE addition. The results indicated that the carbides in 4Cr5MoSiV1 steels were modified by adding the suitable amount of RE. The eutectic structure and coarse eutectic carbides were all refining and the morphology of the annealed carbides initiated change from strip shape to ellipsoidal shape compared with the unmodified test steel (0RE). In addition, the amount of the tempered M8C7 carbides increased initially and then decreased with the alteration of RE addition from 0.018 to 0.15 wt%. Notably, the tensile test indicated that the average value of ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and elongation rate of 0.048RE steel increased slightly to 1474 MPa and 15%, higher than the 1452 MPa and 12% for the unmodified test steel (0RE), respectively. Such an addition of RE (0.048 wt %) would have a significant effect on the carbides evolution of as-cast, annealed and tempered and resulting in the tensile property of 4Cr5MoSiV1 die steel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of H13 steel suggest that under appropriate conditions, additions of rare-earth metals (REM) can significantly enhance mechanical properties, such as impact toughness. This improvement is apparently due to the formation of finer and more dispersive RE inclusions and grain refinement after REM additions. In this present work, the microstructure evolution and mechanical properties of H13 steel with rare earth additions (0, 0.015, 0.025 and 0.1 wt.%) were investigated. The grain size, inclusions and fracture morphology were systematically studied by means of optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results indicate that REM addition of 0.015 wt.% can result in good improvement of performance compared to the REM additions of 0.025 wt.% and 0.1 wt.%. It is found that the impact toughness is significantly enhanced with the addition of 0.015% REM, which can be improved 90% from 10 J to 19 J. Such an addition of REM can result in a huge volume fraction of finer and more dispersive inclusions which are extremely good to toughness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A numerical modeling of the welding arc and weld pool is studied for moving GTA welding to investigate the effect of the surface active element oxygen and the plasma drag force on the weld shape. Based on the 2D axisymmetric numerical modeling of the argon arc, the heat flux, current density and plasma drag force are obtained under different welding currents. Numerical calculations to the weld pool development are carried out for moving GTA welding on SUS304 stainless steel with different oxygen contents 30 ppm and 220 ppm, respectively. The results show that the plasma drag force is another dominating driving force affecting the liquid pool flow pattern, except for the Marangoni force. The different welding currents will change the temperature distribution and plasma drag force on the pool surface, and affect the strength of Marangoni convection and the weld shape. The weld D/W ratio initially increases, followed by a constant value around 0.5 with the increasing welding current under high oxygen content. The weld D/W ratio under the low oxygen content slightly decreases with the increasing welding current. The predicted weld shape by simulation agrees well with experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A model was presented to describe the microstructure evolution during the directional solidification process. In this model, the problem of different properties in the solid and liquid phase was solved by making the properties continuous at the solid/liquid interface. Furthermore, a random noise was incorporated to reflect the anisotropic growth. Moreover, the averaging solute conservation was developed to keep the total solute conservation in the interface region. A simple ingot was simulated by this method, the model can represent the microstructure evolution, solute concentration redistribution, micro-segregation and the columnar-to-equiaxed transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Monte Carlo (MC) technique has been used to model deformation-induced ferrite transformation (DIFT) in an Fe-C binary system on a mesoscale. The effects of strain rate, strain, and recrystallization of the matrix on DIFT are investigated. Increasing the strain rate slightly retards the onset of DIFT. The volume fraction of ferrite increases gradually as the strain increases before the volume fraction of ferrite reaches its saturation value. After the volume fraction of ferrite becomes saturated, it oscillates around its saturation value. The recrystallization of austenite slightly retards the onset of the DIFT. Although the recrystallization of austenite reduces the equilibrium volume fraction of ferrite significantly, it cannot completely suppress DIFT. The stress concentration has been shown to induce the nucleation of ferrite near the grain boundaries and phase boundaries. The significance of the reverse transformation has been investigated. We found that there is a temporal oscillation of the volume fraction of ferrite and the stored energy after they arrive at their saturation values. We conclude that this oscillation and the effect of the strain rate on DIFT are both brought about by the reverse transformation from induced ferrite to undeformed austenite. The diffusion behavior of carbon atoms in the systems is different for different strain rates. The simulation shows that the dynamic recovery of austenite cannot occur in the system during deformation under the present conditions. The results of the simulation show that, other than the oscillation of the equilibrium volume fraction of ferrite and the unusual diffusion behavior of carbon atoms, the simulation agrees well with the corresponding experimental results. The temporal oscillation of the volume fraction of ferrite and stored energy and the unusual diffusion behavior are two new phenomena that have not been reported by other researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By means of standard and hybrid density functional theory, we analyzed the electronic, optical, and mechanical properties of the two discovered superhard orthorhombic (W) and monoclinic (M) phases of carbon, synthesized by cold compression. We demonstrated that both phases exhibit a transparent insulating behaviour with indirect band gaps of about 5.4 eV (W) and 4.5 eV (M), and highly isotropic optical spectra, substantially different to those of the related body centered tetragonal C4 phase. The analysis of the elastic constants and Vickers hardness confirmed that these phases are as hard as the second hardest material c-BC2N. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]