Precipitation characteristic of high strength steels microalloyed with titanium produced by compact strip production

Transmission electron microscopy （TEM） and physics-chemical phase analysis were employed to investigate the precipitates in high strength steels microalloyed with Ti produced by compact strip production （CSP）. It was seen that precipitates in Ti microalloyed steels mainly included TiN, Ti4C2S2, and TiC. The size of TiN particles varied from 50 to 500 nm, and they could precipitate during or before soaking. The Ti4C2S2 with the size of 40-100 nm might precipitate before rolling, and the TiC particles with the size of 5-50 nm precipitated heterogeneously. High Ti content would lead to the presence of bigger TiC particles that precipitated in austenite, and by contrast, TiC particles that precipitated in ferrite and the transformation of austenite to ferrite was smaller. They were less than 30 nm and mainly responsible for precipitate strengthening. It should be noted that the TiC particles in higher Ti content were generally smaller than those in the steel with a lower Ti content.

Enhancing strength of an ultra-low-carbon weathering steel to 700 MPa by adjusting Ti content

The microstructure and mechanical properties of a traditional Ti-microalloyed weathering steel were analyzed,and the strength was improved by proposing an optimized Ti content.The yield strength and elongation of the steel were 640 MPa and 25.5%,respectively.The microstructure was ferrite and pearlite,and the average grain size was 5.4μm.The precipitates were mainly TiC with the size below 20 nm,and the average diameter was 18.2 nm.The yield strength of the newly proposed weathering steel with Ti content of 0.018%higher than that of the traditional steel reached up to 709 MPa,and the elongation was 23.5%.The ferrite grain was refined to 3.8μm,the fraction of TiC under 10 nm was obviously increased,and the average diameter of particles was 9.8 nm.The increase in Ti also promoted the recrystallization process,thus leading to the reduction in dislocation density.The yield strength of the newly proposed weathering steel was increased to higher than 700 MPa by adjusting the Ti content mainly resulting from three aspects:grain refinement,precipitation and dislocation strengthening.The contributed values were 45,64 and–40 MPa,respectively.

Isothermal transformation and precipitation behaviors of titanium microalloyed steels

The microstructure transformation and precipitation behavior of nano-carbides in Ti microalloyed steel during isothermal process were studied by a compression test on a Gleeble 3800 thermomechanical simulator and analyzed by optical microscopy,transmission electron microscopy and other methods.The results show thatγ→αphase transformation and TiC precipitation take place in Ti microalloyed steel during the isothermal process,and time–temperature–transformation curve and precipitation–time–temperature(PTT)curve are all of“C”-type.During the isothermal process,the interphase precipitation of TiC mostly occurs at the period of the phase transformation,and the random precipitation of TiC mostly occurs on the ferrite after the phase transformation.The increment in yield strength at the initial stage of isothermal transformation mainly comes from phase transformation strengthening.With the increase in isothermal time,the precipitation hardening effect becomes more important for nucleation and growth of titanium carbides and eventually reaches the maximum value at the precipitation finished point of the PTT curve.