Effect of cooling rate on microstructure and inclusion in non-quenched and tempered steel during horizontal directional solidification

In order to investigate the relationship between microstructure and MnS inclusion in non-quenched and tempered steel, and cooling rate during horizontal directional solidification, 49MnVS steel was used to conduct the experiments with a selfdesigned device. The mathematical effect of cooling rate on dendritic arm spacing and mean diameter of MnS particles (dMnS) were determined by using linear regression method. The results show that the length of dendrite from solid–liquid interface to end-solidification decreased with increasing the withdrawal velocity (#). dMnS has a similar value in the area of the steady directional solidification;the value of dMnS was 4.1, 3.6, 3.3, 2.8 and 2.3 lm at withdrawal velocity of 50, 75, 100, 150 and 200 lm/s, respectively. dMnS increased with reducing # or RC (interface cooling rate). MnS precipitated in the gaps between dendrites and was influenced by secondary dendritic arm spacing. Besides, a new concept of the ‘Precipitation Unit Space’(PUS) was proposed and the relationships between dMnS, VPUS (volume of PUS) and RC were obtained.

High cycle rotating bending fatigue performance and fracture behavior in a pearlite-ferrite dual-phase steel

To clarify the effects of ferrite morphologies and contents on high-cycle fatigue property of pearlite-ferrite dual-phase(DP)steel used for fabrication of commercial vehicle crankshafts,two types of DP steels with different ferrite grain sizes(S10:13.1μm and S30:21.4μm)and ferrite contents(S10:~9.5 vol.%and S30:~30.4 vol.%)were prepared.Stress amplitude-logarithm of number of high cycles to failure fatigue of the two DP steels was evaluated.Experimental results showed a fatigue strength of 510 and 400 MPa for S10 and S30 steels,respectively,at 10^(7) cycles.Fatigue cracks in S10 steel extended preferentially along the grain boundary,but it was easy for crack propagation to extend within a pearlite colony to form a zigzag crack morphology.Crack roughness was enhanced and high stress was introduced to the crack surface due to this kind of crack propagation behavior,which has positive effects on slowing down crack propagation.However,the crack propagation in S30 steel mainly occurred inside the soft equiaxed coarse ferrite grain.Analysis revealed that little stress was introduced to the crack surface.These results show that it is possible to improve high cycle fatigue strength of pearlite-ferrite DP steel by appropriately manipulating the volume fraction and microstructure morphology of ferrite phase.