Institut fr Eisenhttenkunde der RWTH Aachen

New Microalloyed Forging Steels

CBMM, 13th July London
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Bleck

Strip Products Continuous casting of slabs or thin slabs Thermomechanical rolling on HSM or CSM Cold rolling and batch or continuous annealing in general: well defined process routes Forging Products Semi-product: long products via numerous different process routes Forging: numerous different product forms and different temperature and deformation cycles difficult process control many constraints: tooling, forces limited control of cooling rates Niobium in Forging Steels

High C contents; Martensitic of Bainitic microstructure Transformation Kinetics; robust processes Grain refinement of austenite/martensite?/bainite? Enhanced mechanical properties

Introduction

Current Nb related Industry Projects at IEHK

Case-Hardening Steels (Al-reduced)
DFG-Project, Cluster of Excellence WP 5200 Demon

Precipitation Hardening Ferritic/ Pearlitic Steels

AViF-Project, A 228

High-Strength Ductile Bainitic Steels

BMWI-Project, IGF 260 ZN

TRIP-Forging Steels
BMWI-Project, IGF 374 ZN

Forging Simulation of Nb-Microalloyed Steels

BMWI-Project, IGF 17246 N

Damage Tolerant Microstructures of Highly Stressed Components for Mechanical Engineering

DFG-AiF-Project, HiPerComp

Projects

Project 1: Case hardening steel for high temperature carburising processes Project 2: Al-reduced case hardening steel for high temperature carburising processes

Microalloyed Gear Steels

High temperature carburizing decreases the production duration and costs of gear components. Grain size control of austenite is needed. Grain growth can be prevented by microalloying of case hardening steels. Prediction and optimization of particle size and amount is performed by numerical simulation of particle evolution.

Microalloyed Gear Steels

Material: 25CrMo4 + Nb/Ti

C 0.24 Si 0.22 Mn 0.89 Cr 0.92 Mo 0.43 Ni 0.18 V Al N Ti Nb 0.008 0.023 0.016 0.009 0.034

STEM

STEM

STEM

STEM

Forging

Rolling

FP-Annealing

HT-Case hardening

STEM

Microalloyed Gear Steels

Experimental Procedure

NbC

100 nm

BG-I, cold formed, 930 C 75 min

Nb

Different particles can be found: AlN, NbC and Ti(C,N) Shape factor for AlN >2 and NbC - Ti(C,N) ~ 1

AlN Ti(C,N)

Al

Ti

EFTEM / during Processing

Faster ripening of Al-nitrides in comparison to (Ti,Nb)-carbonitrides Higher pinning force for (Ti,Nb)-carbonitrides in comparision to Al-nitrides
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Simulation Results

 Prediction of pinning force using calculation of particle evolution along different process chains Small improvement of pinning force via shortening of austenitization time

Decrease of pinning force by increase of austenitization temperature up to 1200 C equal to increasing the case hardening temperature to 1100 C
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Simulation Results

Austenite initial grain size start microstructure, heating conditions, particle state Pinning force particle size, amount and distribution

Z Z AlN Z (Ti , Nb)( C , N )

Description of pinning force due to Zener force
Increase of particle amount and decrease of particle size needed

3 f 2r Z Zener force, J / cm 3 Z AlN /(Ti , Nb)( C , N )

surface energy , J / cm 2
f particle amount r particle radius, cm
Grain Size Control
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Microalloyed Gear Steels

 Al reduction is requested for cleanliness improvement. The same pinning force at 1050 C in Nb modified 25CrMo4 steel can be

obtained by an increase of Nb content to 850 ppm. Additionally, an increase in solution temperature is needed. Conclusion: a combined development of alloy and process parameters is needed in order to realize this new steel concept.

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Al reduced Case Hardening Steel

Al

Nb

Ti

Ref
Mod

227 ppm
87 ppm

337 ppm
850 ppm

89 ppm
16 ppm

166 ppm
160 ppm

High grain stability of Al-reduced grade for 1050 C and 1100 C No abnormal growth at 1100 C

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Experimental results of grain size distribution

 Project 1: Microalloyed precipitation hardening ferritic/pearlitic steels (PHFP-M)

Project 2: High-strength ductile bainitic steels (HDB)

Project 3: TRIP-Forging Steels

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Materials Design of High-Strength Forging Steels

Commonly used alloy concepts for forging components:

Quenched and Tempered (Q&T) forging steels (e.g. 42CrMo4)

Need of additional heat treatment, danger of distortion

Ferritic / Pearlitic precipitation hardening forging steels (e.g. 38MnVS6) Limited in strength and especially toughness

Necessity for advanced mechanical properties and easy processing

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Materials Design of Forging Steels

Motivation

C PHFP 1 PHFP-M 1 PHFP-M 2 HDB 1 HDB 2 0.38 0.36 0.30 0.30 0.22

Si 0.60 0.68 0.62 1.56 1.47

Mn 1.40 1.44 1.44 1.52 1.50

S 0.05 0.03 0.03 0.02 0.01

Cr 0.04 0.15 0.29 1.23 1.31

Mo 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.08 0.09

B <0.0005 <0.0005 <0.0005 0.0025 0.0025

Nb <0,001 0.029 0.049 0.029 0.035

Ti <0,001 0.022 0.020 0.023 0.026

V 0.10 0.19 0.19 <0,001 <0,001

N 0.010 0.021 0.012 0.012 0.011

chemical composition in wt.%

Effect of Alloying Elements:

Nb, V:
Cr:

increase strength by precipitation hardening

decreases vcrit and increases tensile strength

B, Ti, N:

B decreases vcrit in solute state, therefore Ti is added to form TiN (refinement austenite grain) instead of BN
Si > 1% suppresses the formation of cementite
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Si:

Material Design of Forging Steels

Alloy Design

Precipitation hardening ferritc/pearlitic steels:

low Nb medium Nb high Nb C 0,35 0,35 0,35 Si 0,64 0,62 0,65 Mn 1,40 1,41 1,41 P 0,008 0,008 0,009 S 0,030 0,029 0,030 Cr 0,16 0,17 0,17 Mo 0,06 0,06 0,06 Ni 0,16 0,16 0,17 Cu 0,01 0,01 0,01 N Al Nb 0,0154 0,021 <0,001 0,0144 0,023 0,03 0,0141 0,026 0,06 Ti 0,02 0,02 0,02 V 0,11 0,10 0,10

chemical composition in wt.%

Strength properties:
Increasing Nb content leads to increasing strength, especially yield strength

Amount of mass fraction of microalloying precipitates:

Nb(C,N) MnS AlN

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Materials Design of Forging Steels

PHFP-M

Mechanical Properties HDB 1 steel:

Tounghness at RT in J

Total elongation in %

Strength in MPa

blocky M/A

elongated retained austenite

Blocky M/A

bainitic ferrite

Transformation temperature in C
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Correlation Heat Treatment / Microstructure / Mechanical Properties in HDB Steels

Lath width in mm

Common Rail (HDB 2)

bainitic microstructure

+ MAE

amount retained austenite after continuous cooling: ~7,8% (measured by EBSD analysis)

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Toughness dependent on Yield Strength

HDB
bainitic ferrite FB + retained austenite R + Nb (C,N)

PHFP-M pearlite lamellae spacing l Ti, V, Nb (C,N) ferrite fraction

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Materials Design of Forging Steels

Mechanical Properties

 The variation of small amounts of Mn (+0,5 wt.-%) and Nb (+0,025 wt.-%) results in a change of transformation behavior Therefore the mechanical properties change dramatically especially at very slow cooling rates

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Effect of Nb and Mn on the transformation behaviour of steel 18CrNiMo7

Simulation the Flow-Behaviour and Microstructure Evolution during Multi-Hit Forging of Microalloyed Steels

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Forging of Microalloyed Steels

 Hot Forging: Process and Materials Simulation

=f(,T,)
Empirical Approaches

Hot-Deformation

Flow Stress
Dynamic/ Static Recovery and Recrystallization

=f(,T,S)
Microstructure
Internal Variable

Precipitation of Microalloying Elements Ti,V,Nb Grain Growth

=g(,T,)
Dislocation Density

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Modeling the Flow-Behaviour and Microstructure Evolution

 Hot Forging: Process and Materials Simulation

Temperature, Strain Rate, Grain Size, Chem.Comp.

Critical Dislocation Density crit

crit

Dislocation Density Evolution/ Dynamic Recrystallization

Temperature, Strain Rate, Grain Size, Chem.Comp.

fconv

FV;R CV CN CC Precipitation Model Y/N

Dm

kdyn,c8,c1,n

Temperature, Strain Rate, Grain Size, Chem.Comp.

Dislocation Density Evolution/ Static Recrystallization

X Dm

Temperature, Strain Rate, Grain Size, Chem.Comp.

kstat

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Interconnection of the Sub-Modules

 Hot Forging: Process and Materials Simulation

PHI /-0.30 0.27 0.24 0.21 0.18 0.15 0.12 0.09 0.06 0.03 0

XDXN /-50% 45% 40%

High Grade of Deformation High Volume Fraction of DRX

35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0

Courtesy

GmbH

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FEM-Simulation in FORGE

 Hot Forging: Process and Materials Simulation

DM /m
55.0 50.0 45.0 40.0 35.0 30.0 25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.5

l=32 l=29 l=27

l=32 l=42
l=47 l PAG in m

Courtesy

GmbH

Courtesy

GmbH 35

FEM-Simulation in FORGE
Austenite Grain Size

 Hot Forging: Process and Materials Simulation Simulation of the Flow Stress as Function of the Dislocation Density

Translation of the Model in Material Flow Simulation

Meshed geometry of an uniaxial forging sample

Local distribution of flow stress (status after 0.35s process time)

Flow stress of the middle element

Courtesy

GmbH

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Model Implementation in eesy-2-form

Multi-Tasking New use of Nb in a great variety of steels

Increase of: Strength Toughness Ductility

Short Processing

Economic/ Efficient Processing Wide Fields of Applications

Applications

Multifunctional
Fast Precipitation

Improved Materials Properties and Design

Precipitation

Crack Resistance

Grain Refinement
Alloy Design

Kinetics Hardening

Al,V

Nb

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Niobium in New Forging Steels

Institut fr Eisenhttenkunde der RWTH Aachen

New Microalloyed Forging Steels

CBMM, 13th July London
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Bleck