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A Thermodynamic Analysis of Strengthening Mechanisms and Process-Structure-Property Relationships in Ti-Nb-Mo High-Strength Ferritic Alloy

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Abstract

We elucidate here the significant impact of processing and coiling temperature on microstructure and mechanical properties of Ti-Nb-Mo high-strength ferritic steel through thermodynamic modeling and quantitative analysis of strengthening mechanisms. The study clearly demonstrated that the moderate coiling temperature (570 °C) exhibited superior mechanical properties (yield strength of 773 MPa and elongation of 13%). At this coiling temperature, high percentage (58.64%) of nano-size (4-10 nm) precipitates were obtained with the finest average ferrite grain size of 3.34 ± 0.28 µm. The quantitative analysis of strengthening effects suggested that contributions of precipitation hardening from (Ti, Mo, Nb)C particles and grain refinement were 36.7 and 37.7%, respectively, and were remarkable. A precipitation model was utilized to predict the average size and volume fraction of precipitates and mass fraction of solute elements in the steel matrix. The thermodynamic model predicted precipitate size of 6.81 nm, consistent with the experimentally observed size of 7.01 ± 0.51 nm, when the steel was coiled at 570 °C for 2 h.

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Acknowledgments

The experimental studies conducted at WUST were thermodynamically modeled at UTEP. The authors (G. H. Wu and K. M. Wu) are grateful to the financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. U1532268, U20A20279, and 51671149, Wuhan Science and Technology Program under Grant No. 2019010701011382, Excellent Young and Middle-aged Science and Technology Innovation Team in Colleges and Universities of Hubei Province under Grant No.T201903, and the 111 project under Grant No. 18018.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Excellence in Advanced Steel Research, Department of Metallurgical, Materials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX, 79968, USA

    C. Y. Hu, H. Y. Dong & R. D. K. Misra

  2. The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, International Research Institute for Steel Technology, Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Steels, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430081, China

    G. H. Wu & K. M. Wu

  3. Metals Valley and Band (Foshan) Metallic Composite Co., Ltd., Foshan, 528000, Guangdong, China

    K. M. Wu

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Hu, C.Y., Dong, H.Y., Wu, G.H. et al. A Thermodynamic Analysis of Strengthening Mechanisms and Process-Structure-Property Relationships in Ti-Nb-Mo High-Strength Ferritic Alloy. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 30, 2946–2954 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-021-05517-6

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