Thermomechanical ausforming technique for producing substitute ultra high strength steels J. K. M U KHERJ EE HE most important high strength structural alloy into a hot liquid bath maintained above Ms tempera- used up to the present time is steel. Its easy ture and metastable austenite is then superficially formed T availability and diverse properties have further by shot pinning and transformed to martensite. He added to its undisputable choice for such applications. reported some improvements in the properties by such Other materials (Al & Ti based alloys ) which offer a treatment. similar advantages have only limited applications. The A departure from the conventional heat treatment of demand for materials with higher strength to weight steel which attracted attention was first suggested by ratios, has increased considerably in past few years. Lips and Van Zuilen 2 in 1954, as a means for obtain- This is evidenced by the increasing demands by the ing higher strength in hardenable steels. They reported aircraft industry and space research programmes. Mo- that unusually high strength could be developed in 4.5°," bility, economy of weight and space and transportability Ni, 1'5°0 Cr, 0.35-0.9°„ C plain carbon steels by hot- provide further incentive for such highly improved cold working of' metastable austenite prior to quenching mechanical properties. To effectively meet this situation to room temperature. Some Russian investigators3•' considerable efforts are being made to till the need have also reported about the improvements in the for improved ultra high strength steels. resistance to temper embrittlement of steels employing Some of the important methods by which strength similar procedures. Schmatt and Zackay,' Kula and of iron can be increased are by interstitial and subs- Dhosi,' Justasson and Schniatz.- Raymond et all and titutional solid solutioning, decreasing grain size, cold others later confirmed on the basis of their work the working and dispersion hardening. In low alloy or feasibility of' this thermal mechanical treatment as a plain carbon steels, highest strength is obtained when means to improve the properties of high strength steels. the steel is transformed to martensitic structure. The Based on the results reported by all these workers and tensile strength of heat treatable low alloy steels has also on the work carried out at BISRA. Duckworth gone up to 110 tons/in2 by suitable alloying and heat presented a series of excellent papers" where he exten- treatment procedures. Increase in strength is generally sively discussed this new field and put forward various accomplished by lowering the tempering temperature classifications and terminologies of thermo-mechanical and has been obtained at the sacrifice of certain amount treatment,, mr TMT. of ductility and toughness. A great deal of effort has also been directed on the high alloy high strength steels Definitions and terminologies with excellent ductility and toughness. Maraging, pre- cipitation and controlled transformation steels are some As mentioned earlier, the process TMT consists of of the products of such efforts. The mechanism leading mechanical working of steel in its auslenitic condition to high strength in these alloys is based on dispersion with subsequent rapid quenching to prevent recrystalli- hardening by the process of precipitation during ageing zation of the deformed austenite. Broadly. there are two treatments. The scope of utilisation of these alloys is known ways of using TMT. In the first instance the steel also limited due to their higher cost of production. is mechanically worked in the stable austenite range The need for developing inexpensive high strength (above the AC., point and the recrystallization temperature) steels for structural purposes is still felt. Harvey' pro- while in the second case the steel is deformed in the posed a step quenching treatment, in which the steel range of metastable austenite below the recrystallization is first quenched from the austenitizing temperature temperature. Fig. I is the diagramatic representation of the TMT process taken from Harvey.` Dr J. K. Mukherjee, M.Sc., Ph.D., Scientist, National Metallurgical Deformation of metastable austenites below the re- Laboratory, Jamshedpur. crystallization temperature can again be divided into 156 Mukherjee : Therniontechanicul ausforming technique for high strength steels different processes included in TMT. These are (I) Solution controlled roiling the low temperature rolling of ferrite] T ant pearlite steels (2) ioforming-deformation during isother- mal transformation to pearlite and bainite. (3) cryoform- STABLE AUSTENITE ing deformation of controlled transformation steels and (4) ausforming-deformation of metastable austenite prior to the transformation to hainite and subsequently META-STABLE ^.o quenched to inartensite. y AUSTENITE This paper mainly deals with the ausforming process and the effects of composition and process variables on the mechanical properties of substitute high strength IiMPF RATURE r y ^'P ..^ N 1`Z steels, in relation to their potential applications. The ausforming process It is well known that the isothermal transformation diagram of any steel f Fig. I) represents the time depen- M, dent reactions and their kinetics. It has also been known MARTENSITE that such reactions or transformations do not take place instantaneously and the time required for various transformations to occur are characteristically represen- ted in such diagrams. Ausforming process consists of interposition of plastic strain between the critical tem- peratures i.e. AC, and the Ms. It may also be described TIME as the strain hardening of metastable austenite within I Schematic representation of the principles of 'ausforming' and the temperature region that exists in the 'bay' between 'hot-cold working' (Hattori) the transformation regions of pearlite and bainite, quenching of the strain hardened austenite to marten- site, followed by tempering of the martensite so formed. Alloying elements in steel profoundly affect the trans- thening in the ausforming process and that it plays a formation characteristics by altering the incubation vital part in determining the mechanical properties as period and reaction kinetics of isothermal decomposi- it does in conventional heat treated steels. It has also tion. By suitable addition of carbide forming elements, been demonstrated13 that the strength and ductility of such as, chromium : molybdenum, vanadium, etc. a ausformed steels are directly dependent upon the carbon -bay' may be developed in the metastable austenite content for a given amount of deformation and at a which is sullicientiy stable to resist decomposition during given tempering. deformation. Previous attempts to correlate the properties of the It is therefore apparent that there are two essential austenite with the strength of the subsequently trans- factors to get an ausformed steel : deformation of formed martensite have been considered on the basis metastable austenite and its subsequent quenching to of the contributions from carbon.11.14 In the absence form martensite : these factors are to be controlled carefully by proper selection of alloying elements and the temperature range of sub-critical deformation. W Plastic deformation procedures 450 Z z 400 I- The deformation during ausforming operation may 00 be introduced by a number of processes. In most of the a w 350 earlier work on laboratory scale measured amount of n 300 deformation (extension or compression) was introduced with the help of a tensometer.10 In later work connec- 250 ted with large scale production, rolling, forging and DW 50 drawing operations have been mainly used. Shyne et a 40 all' and Cohen and Tarranto`2 used multipass rolling Z Z o - 30 as the means of deformation, while considerable success z a 2 20 has been achieved in BISRA by carrying out the aus- u 1 Z U forming operation by drawing. a W 0 I , , E Role of carbon and other alloying elements 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 $ CARBON, Q/. It has been established convincingly that carbon is an 2 The inilnence of carbon content on the tensile properties of essential element in steel for achieving appreciable streng- deformed 3.0% Cr-1.5% Ni ; steels. (Zaekay et. at 13) 157 Mukherjee : Therinontechanical ausfonnittg technique for high strength steels mation.'9 Silicon also has a beneficial effect as it slows down the rate of diffusion of carbon and thereby resists DEFORMATION (ROLLING) TEMP,°C over-tempering of ausformed steel. 13 400 500 600 700 800 so With regard to the ausforming response of high DEk0RMAT ON, -to 40 _ 7s a^ alloy steels Cohen and Tarranto'^ reported very encou- raging results with a low carbon steel containing 31 "„ 30 0.40C-5Cr-I30 MoJ( .5V (H II) 50 nickel. These authors achieved an increase of 300 psi TEMPERED AT 950°f'1 (510°C) 20 in yield strength for 1°-^ reduction of the austenite with 10 no appreciable change (401", elongation) in ductility 10 DEF RMAT1ON, 6 75 & 94 value. Malagiri2" reported some interesting results with 5 13% Cr and 9%10 Ni and 15% Cr. 4''„ Ni and 3%,%, Mo stainless steels containing 0.40x, and 0-131, C respec- 0 tively by deforming at 800F and 1000 F. Attempts 700 900 1100 1300 1500 to ausform other type of stainless"' or nun aging steels22 DEFORMATION (.ROLLING) TCMP, °F have not been successful to the same extent. It may however be stated that loss alloy steels exhibit 3 The dependence of the ductility of a type H-11 steel on the rate formation temp. and the amount of deformation (Zackay ei better response to ausforming and best results have been achieved with low alloy martensitic steels. Metallurgical and operational variables of carbon, strengthening of steels by ausforming is Even though the alloying elements play the major small. However, above a certain amount the effect of role in achieving success in the ausforming of steels, carbon becomes comparatively less. there are other factors which are equally important to Justasson and Schmatz' have shown that the response develop the ausformed propeties fully.