Homogenisation of 20SiMn2MoV steel ingots: thermodynamic/kinetic simulation and experimental validation.

The phase transformation behaviour and microsegregation profiles during solidification process of the 20SiMn2MoV as cast ingot was analysed using a computational simulation. Then a conservative estimate of the solidification temperature range was provided by the modified Scheil module of Thermo-Calc software, the result was combined with the previous results of the computational simulation and that were used to simulate the homogenization kinetics of this steel. The simulated maximum/minimum dendrite compositions were confirmed by the experimental composition analysis, the good agreement between the simulation and experiments shows that the thermodynamic calculation and kinetic simulation approaches can be used to design an optimised homogenisation heat treatment for as cast ingots, this method does not need a large amount of experimental data of test ingots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]