Description of martensitic transformation kinetics in Fe-C-X(X = Ni,Cr,Mn,Si) system by a modified model

Controlling the content of athermal martensite and retained austenite is important to improving the mechanical properties of high-strength steels,but a mechanism for the accurate description of martensitic transformation during the cooling process must be addressed.At present,frequently used semi-empirical kinetics models suffer from huge errors at the beginning of transformation,and most of them fail to exhibit the sigmoidal shape characteristic of transformation curves.To describe the martensitic transformation process accurately,based on the Magee model,we introduced the changes in the nucleation activation energy of martensite with temperature,which led to the varying nucleation rates of this model during martensitic transformation.According to the calculation results,the relative error of the modified model for the martensitic transformation kinetics curves of Fe-C-X(X = Ni,Cr,Mn,Si) alloys reached 9.5% compared with those measured via the thermal expansion method.The relative error was approximately reduced by two-thirds compared with that of the Magee model.The incorporation of nucleation activation energy into the kinetics model contributes to the improvement of its precision.

Icosahedral quasicrystal structure of the Mg_(40)Zn_(55)Nd_(5) phase and its thermodynamic stability

The quasicrystal phase is beneficial to increasing the strength of magnesium alloys.However,its complicated structure and unclear phase relations impede the design of alloys with good mechanical properties.In this paper,the Mg_(40)Zn_(55)Nd_(5) icosahedral quasicrystal(I-phase)structure is discovered in an as-cast Mg-58Zn-4Nd alloy by atomic resolution high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy(HAADF-STEM).A cloud-like morphology is observed with Mg_(41.6)Zn_(55.0)Nd_(3.4) composition.The selected area electronic diffrac-tion(SAED)analysis shows that the icosahedral quasicrystal structure has 5-fold,4-fold,3-fold,and 2-fold symmetry zone axes.The thermo-dynamic stability of the icosahedral quasicrystal is investigated by differential scanning calorimetry(DSC)in the annealed alloys.When an-nealed above 300℃,the Mg_(40)Zn_(55)Nd_(5) quasicrystal is found to decompose into a stable ternary phase Mg_(35)Zn_(60)Nd_(5),a binary phase MgZn,andα-Mg,suggesting that the quasicrystal is a metastable phase in the Mg-Zn-Nd system.

Thermodynamic prediction of martensitic transformation temperature in Fe-C-X(X=Ni,Mn,Si,Cr)systems with dilatational coefficient model

Martensitic transformation is significant to strengthen steels,but its thermodynamic prediction is restricted to simple systems due to lacking multicomponent interaction parameters.The driving forces of martensitic transformation can be divided into chemical and non-chemical driving forces.The magnetic parameters are carefully optimized because it affects the magnetic Gibbs free energy of austenite and ferrite,and have big impact on the chemical driving force.The dilatational strain energy provides major contribution to non-chemical driving force,thus the integrated-models for dilatational coefficient are constructed in a wide composition and temperature range based on the experimental dilatational data.It expands the scope of application of thermodynamic model and improved prediction accuracy of martensitic transformation temperature(M_(s)).The prediction error reaches 5.6%for Fe-C-X(X=Ni,Mn,Si,Cr)and6.5%for Fe-C-Mn-Si-X(X=Cr,Ni)steels.