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The corrosion morphology in grade 2205 duplex stainless steel wire was studied to understand the nature of pitting and the causes of the ferrite phase’s selective corrosion in acidic (pH 3) NaCl solutions at 60 °C. It is shown that the corrosion mechanism is always pitting, which either manifests lacy cover perforation or densely arrayed selective cavities developing selectively on the ferrite phase. Pits with a lacy metal cover form in concentrated chloride solutions, whereas the ferrite phase’s selective corrosion develops in diluted electrolytes, showing dependency on the chloride-ion concentration. The pit perforation is probabilistic and occurs on both austenite and ferrite grains. The lacy metal covers collapse in concentrated solutions but remain intact in diluted electrolytes. The collapse of the lacy metal cover happens due to hydrogen embrittlement. Pit evolution is deterministic and occurs selectively in the ferrite phase in light chloride solutions.

In engineering applications, to increase productivity and to decrease production costs, the selection of the proper engineering material is essential. At that point, machining operations directly affect the production costs. Therefore, determination of the material with the desired mechanical properties and easy-to-cut characteristics has a critical importance. This situation is currently gaining more importance in especially defense industry applications in which high strength engineering materials are heavily employed. In addition, tool performance and final product quality are directly influenced by the cooling and/or lubrication conditions in particularly interrupted cutting operations. In this study, machinability characteristics of G18NiMoCr3-6+QT1 cast steel (CS) and 1050-6 austempered ductile iron (ADI) with similar mechanical properties during milling operations were investigated. The tests were performed using TiAlN coated cemented carbide (WC-Co) end mills under dry, conventional cutting fluid (CCF), and minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) conditions. Under each condition, the variations of cutting forces, tool wear, average surface roughness (Ra), and subsurface microstructure and microhardness were analyzed for both materials and then compared to one another. Test results showed that 1050-6 ADI led to further tool wear in comparison to G18NiMoCr3-6+QT1 CS. According to obtained results, dry condition is more favorable than CCF and MQL conditions in terms of cutting forces, surface roughness, and tool wear for both types of material. In addition, examinations on subsurface microstructures showed that MQL conditions provided an effective cutting environment to maintain microstructural stability of workpiece materials.

In this study, the effect of austenitizing temperatures and low-temperature isothermal heat treatment (below martensite start temperature) on the microstructure and mechanical properties of AISI 9254 high silicon spring steel has been investigated. Experimental studies show that ultra-fine carbide-free bainite, tempered martensite and carbon enriched retained austenite could be observed in isothermally heat-treated samples where the as-received sample consisted of fine pearlite. A high tensile strength of ~2060 MPa, a total elongation of ~8 %, and absorbed energy of 105 J were achieved in a commercial high-Si steel by austempering below the Ms temperature. A good combination of strength and ductility has been obtained in prolonged austempering below the martensite start temperature (225 °C) from an austenitizing temperature of 870 °C.

This study examined the response of low-alloy white cast iron to austempering heat treatment. In addition, it investigated the microstructure and mechanical properties of austempered low-alloy white cast iron. The low-alloy white cast iron specimens were austenitized at 900 °C, followed by quick quenching into a salt bath at 375 °C, and held there for 15 to 120 minutes for austempering heat treatment. Microstructural features were studied by optical, scanning electron microscopes, and XRD analysis. The mechanical properties were determined by hardness and unnotched Charpy impact toughness tests. As a function of those austempering times, a microstructural map was constructed to show how the transformation products develop, quantitatively. The experimental results showed that the austempering heat treatment produced a microstructure consisting of eutectic carbides + ausferritic structure in low-alloy white cast iron. It can be concluded that the low-alloy white cast iron can be austempered, similar to ductile cast irons. Improved hardness and impact toughness values have been obtained in austempered low-alloy white cast iron.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is becoming increasingly popular since it offers flexibility to produce complex designs with less tooling and minimum material at shorter lead times. Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is a variant of additive manufacturing which allows economical production of large-scale and high-density parts. The WAAM process has been studied extensively on different steels; however, the influence of process parameters, specifically wire feed speed (WFS), travel speed (TS), and their ratio on bead geometry, microstructure, and mechanical properties, are yet to be studied. The present work aims at closing this gap by using the WAAM process with robotic cold metal transfer (CMT) technology to manufacture high-strength structural steel parts. For that purpose, single-bead welds were produced from HSLA steel by varying WFS between 5 and 10 m/min and the WFS to TS ratio between 10 and 20. Those variations produce heat inputs in the range of 266–619 J/mm. The results have shown that the wire feed speed to travel speed ratio is the major parameter to control the heat input. Increasing heat input increases characteristic bead dimension, whereas it reduces the hardness. In the second part of experiments, two single-bead walls were deposited via the parallel deposition strategy and one multiple-bead wall was produced using the oscillation strategy. The tensile properties were tested along two directions: parallel and perpendicular to deposition directions. For the yield strength and tensile strength, the difference between horizontally and vertically tested specimens was smaller than the standard deviations. On the other hand, the total and uniform elongation values exhibit up to 10% difference in the test direction, indicating anisotropy in ductility. Those tensile properties were attributed to repeated thermal cycles during the WAMM process, which can cause heat transfer in multiple directions. The yield strength of the multiple-bead wall produced via oscillation was lower, whereas its ductility was higher. The tensile properties and hardness differences were found to correlate well with the microstructure.

The present study was conducted to reveal the effects of building angles and post heat-treatments (2-step Thermo-Hydrogen Processing (THP) and conventional annealing treatment) on the density, microstructure and texture of Ti6Al4V alloy parts produced by Electron Beam Melting (EBM). The results showed that regardless of the building angle; the density, microstructure and crystallographic texture (defined with respect to building angle) of the as-produced samples were identical; having Widmanstatten α structure and columnar β-grains which are parallel to building direction. The main texture component for the α phase was (10 1 ¯ 0 )//building direction, and for β phase (001)//building or heat flow direction. The first step of THP, namely, the hydrogenation step, produced a needle-like microstructure and increased the local misorientations due to lattice distortion. On the other hand, after application of the second step of THP, dehydrogenation step, microstructure was refined, particularly α-grains that were larger than 10 μm and located at grain boundaries. Moreover, THP randomized the crystallographic texture since it involves β to α phase transformation, at which one β-grain can produce 12 distinct α-variants. The grain boundary misorientation distributions also changed in accordance with the microstructural changes during the 2-step THP. On the other hand, annealing coarsened the grain boundary and Widmanstatten α phases; moreover, it changed the texture so that the basal planes (0001) rotated 30° around the building direction.

The influence of friction stir processing (FSP) on the microstructure and mechanical properties of a DP 600 steel has been studied. The microstructure evolution during the FSP has been characterized using electron back-scatter diffraction (EBSD) technique and scanning and transmission electron microscopes. Standard tension and hardness tests were used to characterize the mechanical properties. The results show that the FSP produced a refined microstructure composed of ferrite, bainite, martensite, and tempered martensite which in turn increased the hardness and strength magnitudes by a factor of 1.5. The initially 2.83 μm average grain size of ferrite has decreased to 0.79 μm in the pin effected zone of (PE-SZ-I) of the processed region. Both EBSD and TEM observations showed regions with high dislocation density and sub-structures region in the processed zone. The grain size became coarser, the density of both dislocations and low-angle grain boundaries decrease, away from the processed zone. Moreover, phase fractions and hardness values were predicted using CALPHAD thermodynamic based software based on commercial material properties. Although the prediction does not take into consideration the influence of severe plastic deformation, the results were within 10% uncertainties of the experimental findings. The present study demonstrates that an ultra-fine grained structure can be obtained through the thickness of a 1.5 mm thick D P600 steel sheet via FSP. FSP can produce a range of different hardness and strength values; which can also be predicted successfully by inputting the composition and local temperatures reached during the FSP.

The effects of size and shape of austenite grains on the extraordinary hardening of steels with transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) have been studied. The deformation and transformation of austenite was followed by interrupted ex situ bending tests using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) in a scanning electron microscope (SEM). A finite element model (FEM) was used to relate the EBSD based results obtained in the bending experiments to the hardening behavior obtained from tensile experiments. The results are interpreted using a simple rule of mixture for stress partitioning and a short fiber reinforced composite model. It is found that both, the martensite transformation rate and the flow stress difference between austenite and martensite significantly influence the hardening rate. At the initial stage of deformation mainly larger grains deform, however, they do not reach the same strain level as the smaller grains because they transform into martensite at an early stage of deformation. A composite model was used to investigate the effect of grain shape on load partitioning. The results of the composite model show that higher stresses develop in more elongated grains. These grains tend to transform earlier as it is confirmed by the EBSD observations.

The relevance of EBSD-based investigations for statements on the macroscopic or mesoscopic behavior of materials is critically relying on the statistical representativeness of the data. Particularly, the statistical reliability of the EBSD-based results (e.g. texture, phase fraction or grain size) remains an open question since the areas observed by the EBSD technique are quite small compared to XRD techniques. It has already been shown that covering larger areas and probing more grains with the help of large step sizes is beneficial in terms of representativeness [1]. On the other hand, small step sizes are beneficial in terms of grain reconstruction and data clean-up. However, step sizes significantly smaller than the average grain size of the material lead to either covered areas or number of probed grains being too small to be representative or to very large datasets and correspondingly long measurement times. In this contribution, the benefits of a new mapping technique [1] that joins the advantages of large and small step size measurements will be demonstrated. The representativeness of the EBSD datasets obtained by classical and this new mapping techniques were compared by calculating the pole figure symmetries of a TRIP steel. The results show that the proposed mapping technique significantly improves the reliability and representativeness of EBSD-based texture measurements.

The aim of this study is to monitor nondestructively the degree of spheroidization in steels by Magnetic Barkhausen Noise (MBN) method. Various series of specimens consisting of either lamellar pearlite or partially/completely spheroidized carbides were produced from AISI 1060 steel by appropriate heat treatments. All specimens were characterized by metallographic examinations, hardness and MBN measurements. The results show that MBN signals are very sensitive to the variations in the microstructure caused by the spheroidizing heat treatment. The change of microstructure, from coarse lamellar carbides to uniformly dispersed spherical carbides in ferrite matrix, is reflected as higher Barkhausen activity due to less effective pinning of domain walls.

The aim of this article is to discuss the representativeness of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) mapping data for phase fraction determination in multiphase materials. Particular attention is paid to the effect of step size and scanned area. The experimental investigations were carried out on a low-alloyed steel with transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) that shows a relatively heterogeneous distribution of residual austenite in a ferrite matrix. EBSD scans of various area sizes and step sizes were carried out and analyzed with respect to the determined austenite phase fraction. The step size has only an indirect influence on the results, as it determines the size of the investigated area if the number of measurement points is kept constant. Based on the experimental results, the optimum sampling conditions in terms of analyzed area size and the number of measurement points were determined. These values were compared with values obtained from Cochran’s formula, which allows calculation of sampling sizes for predefined levels of precision and confidence. A significant deviation of experimental from theoretical optimum sample sizes was found. This deviation is, for the most part, a result of the heterogeneous distribution of the austenite phase. Depending on grain size and volume fraction of the second phase, the false assignment of phases at grain boundaries also may introduce a significant error. A general formula is introduced that allows estimation of the error caused by these parameters. Finally, a new measurement scheme is proposed that allows improvement of reliability and representativeness of EBSD-based phase determination without large sacrifices in measurement time or data set sizes.

The aim of this work is to characterize the microstructures of quenched and tempered steels non-destructively by a diverse set of parameters of the Magnetic Barkhausen Noise method (MBN fingerprint, frequency spectra, pulse height distribution, root-mean-square, and total number of pulses). Identical specimens from a SAE 5140 steel bar were prepared. All specimens were austenitized at 860°C for 30 minutes and water-quenched identically. The quenched specimens were then tempered at various temperatures between 200°C and 600°C. The microstructures were characterized by metallographic examinations and hardness measurements. Pulse height distributions, noise signal envelopes and frequency spectra were used to evaluate Barkhausen activity. The results show that as the tempering temperature increases, the Barkhausen activity increases due to the enhancement of domain wall displacement with softening of the martensite. An excellent correlation was found between Barkhausen parameters and hardness values.

Recent studies showed that, during stamping of high strength steels at industrially relevant production rates, local temperature in the blank may rise up to 200°C – 300°C due to deformation heating. Moreover, die temperature may also rise up to 100°C – 150°C for progressive stamping dies. Based on the common assumption that the blank softens as the temperature increases, thermal softening creates a margin in Forming Limit Diagram (FLD) and therefore the FLD determined at room temperature can safely be used for those cases. In this article, the validity of this assumption on DP590 steel is questioned by high temperature tensile tests (RT - 300°C) at various strain rates (10-3 s-1 – 1 s-1). The results indicated a decrease both in uniform and total elongation in 200°C – 300°C range together with several other symptoms of Dynamic Strain Aging (DSA) at all strain rates. Concurrent with the DSA, the simulated FLD confirms the lower formability at high temperature and strain rates. Thus, it is concluded FLD determined at RT may not be valid for the investigated steels.

Steels with transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) offer an excellent combination of high strength and ductility. The transformation of meta-stable austenite into martensite during straining leads to strong local hardening and prevents early localization of strain. Therefore, the mechanical properties of TRIP steels, including the damage resistance depend to a significant extent on the stability of retained austenite. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of texture on the stability of retained austenite. In order to compare the changes in both tension and compression the steel was deformed by a micro 3-point-bending device. The texture development upon bending was followed by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) technique. Based on a simple analysis using the relation between face centered cube (FCC) and body centered cube (BCC) shear geometries theoretically expected changes of texture components due to deformation are proposed. Using the results of this analysis the observed changes of the austenite texture due to deformation could be distinguished from those due to transformation, by comparing the experimental results with the theoretically expected behavior. From this comparison, austenite grains with “Brass (B) {011} ” and “Goss (G) {110} ” texture components were found to transform into martensite much easier than differently oriented grains.

Austempered ductile iron (ADI) castings have a wide range of application areas in engineering designs due to its promising mechanical properties and lower cost. ADI has very good strength and toughness values at the same time its ductility is relatively high compared to most of the other cast irons. These promising mechanical properties originate from combination of specific graphite and matrix microstructure. The size, shape and fraction of graphite as well as the matrix microstructure influences the mechanical properties. In this paper the efforts regarding to a localization project of ADI is presented. In a more detailed manner, the first locally produced ADI which cannot satisfy the mechanical properties stated in ISO 17804 is compared with the original sample which is conform with the standard. The two pieces are inspected by mechanically and microstructurally by means of which necessary actions are detected for the local production. In other words the relation between the macro mechanical properties and the microstructural conditions are tried to be clarified. Keywords: Austempered ductile iron; Mechanical properties; Microstructure; Graphite Nodularity DOI: 10.17350/HJSE19030000029 Full Text