Microstructural Transformation and Precipitation of an Ultra-high Strength Steel under Continuous Cooling

We investigated phase transition and precipitation of ultra-high strength steel（UHSS）in a new ＂short process＂ with controlled rolling and controlled cooling.Thermalexpansion test combined with metallographic observation was used to research the continuous cooling transformation（CCT）curve.Moreover,the microstructuraltransformation and precipitation law was revealed by morphologicalobservation and alloying elements by electron probe micro-analyzer（EPMA）.Transmission electron microscopy（TEM）was utilized to analyze the composition and grain orientation of microstructure.The study showed that the measured criticaltransformation temperatures of Ac1 and Ac3 were 746 and 868 ℃,respectively.The CCT curve indicated that the undercooled austenite was transformed into proeutectoid ferrite and bainite with HV 520 in a broad range of cooling rate 0.1^（-1） ℃·s^（-1）.When subjected to a cooling rate of 1 ℃·s^（-1）,the undercooled austenite was divided into small-sized blocks by formed martensite.With further increase of cooling rate,micro-hardness increased dramatically,the microstructure of specimen was mainly lathe bainite（LB）,granular bainite（GB）,lath martensite（LM）and residualaustenite.By diffraction test analysis,it was identified that there was K-S orientation relationship between martensite and austenite for {110}_α//{111}_γ,{111}_α//{101}_γ.EPMA clearly showed that carbon diffused adequately due to staying for a long time at high temperature with a lower cooling rate of 2 ℃·s-1.Phase transition drive force was lower and the residualaustenite existed in the block form of Martensite austenite island（M-A）.With the increase of cooling rate to 10 ℃·s^（-1）,the block residualaustenite reduced,the carbon content of residualaustenite increased and α phase around the residualaustenite formed into a low carbon bainite form.

α decay energies and half-lives from a macroscopic-microscopic model

α decay energies of 323 heavy nuclei with Z ≥82 are evaluated with a macroscopic-microscopic model. In this model, the macroscopic part is treated by the continuous medium model and the microscopic part consists of shell and pairing corrections based on the Nilsson potential. α decay half-lives are calculated bY Viola-Seaborg formula. The results of α decay energies and half-lives are compared with experimental values and satisfactory agreement is found. The recoiling effect of the daughter nucleus on α decay half-life is also discussed.