Specification
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a novel composition of continuously cooled hot
rolled high strength steel with minimum 400 VHN (which is approximately >1200
MPa UTS) and minimum 20% retained austenite in the final microstructure (to
provide an elongation of minimum 20%) adaptable to automotive structural
applications.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Application of ultra high strength (UHS) steel sheet increased multifold during
the recent past in an effort to reduce the weight of the overall vehicle. However,
because of its poor formability, the UHS steel sheet is not easily applicable to a
wide variety of automotive components. Hence, the workability required for the
UHS steel sheet demands stringent and additional processing. Therefore, it is
necessary to develop a hot rolled thin steel sheet with high tensile strength
combined with uniform elongation for application to automotive component such
as long and cross member including bumpers.
Technology for producing UHS-Steel is disclosed in the known documents1'2,3,
where major part of strengthening are contributed by the nano-sized bainitic
ferrite sheaves. Admittedly, the prior art technology is enabled to produce
highest strength in the Steel grade, the biggest concern in these steels, known
as "Superbainite" is the long isothermal holding time at a lower temperature (as
high as 5 days at 200°C) to allow the progress of transformation to form
extremely fine bainite sheaves. This long holding time vis-a-vis the
"Superbainite" imposes a restriction in manufacturing of such steel through a
continuous production line. The second disadvantage is the lower elongation
which is typically 7 % at a strength range of 2260 MPa. This limited elongation
does not allow the steel to be used in wider areas of applications where strength
and ductility both are equally important. Another disadvantage is the alloy
composition of the steel, wherein the amount of C in steel typically lies in the
range of 0.8 - 1.0 wt% along with Ni and Co. Such a C concentration does not
allow the steel to be welded and the use of Ni and Co makes the steel very
costly.
Researchers4,5 are continuously trying for reduction of the amount of C and
increasing the elongation. Nevertheless, the current research is also not directed
to evolve a solution towards production of such steels through a continuous
production line. The composition of said prior art steel also contains elements
like Ni and Mo making the steel costlier.
The proposed invention has been developed to solve the difficulties of
combination of excellent ductility and high formability in hot rolled ultra high
strength steel sheet for automotive long and cross member applications by
developing a carbide-free bainitic steel strengthened by very fine bainite plates
with hardness minimum 400 VHN (~ tensile strength of minimum 1200 MPa)
minimum and the presence of minimum 20% retained austenite in the final
microstructure to provide an elongation of minimum 20%.
4
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore, an object of the present invention to propose a steel composition
for producing hot rolled high strength carbide-free bainitic steel sheet, which
eliminates the disadvantages of prior art.
Another object of the present invention is to propose a method of producing hot
rolled high strength carbide-free bainitic steel sheet having 70-80% bainite with
minimum 20% retained austenite with a minimum carbon content of 0.90% C.
A further object of the present invention is to propose a method of producing hot
rolled carbide-free bainitic steel sheet, which increases strength of the steel
product due to the transformation of austenite into carbide free bainite at a
coiling temperature of 350°C -550°C.
A still further object of the present invention is to propose a method of producing
hot rolled carbide free bainitie steel sheet which yields a hardnes value of
minimum 400 VHN (>1200 MPa tensile strength) and 20% minimum retained
austenite in the microstructure to provide at least 20% elongation.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, there is provided a new grade of ultra high strength steel, consisting
of: carbon from 0.2 to 0.5 wt%; silicon content from 1.1 to 2.1 wt%;
manganese content from 1.0 to 2.0 wt%, chromium content between 0.5 to 3.0
wt%, aluminium from 0.01 to 0.07 wt%; sulphur and nitrogen content 0.008
wt% and 0.005 maximum, respectively, the produced steel grade exhibiting a
hardness of more than 400 VHN.
BREIF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS
Figure 1 Calculated TTT diagram for the inventive steel
Figure 2 Calculated To curve for the inventive steel composition
Figure 3a Calculated amount of retained austenite as a function of isothermal
transformation temperature in accordance with the invention
Figure 3b Calculated ratio of film type to blocky type austenite as a function
of isothermal transformation temperature in accordance with the
invention
Figure 4 Calculated strength of the steel in accordance with the invention
Figure 5 Comparison between the cooling profile of a hot rolled coil with the
cooling rate applied in Gleeble in accordance with the invention
Figure 6 Optical microstructure of the newly developed steel
Figure 7 Microstructure of the newly developed steel as seen under
Scanning Electron Microscope
Figure 8 TEM photograph showing the alternate austenite and bainite
structure and the bainite thickness of the newly developed steel
Figure 9 XRD profile sowing the goodness of matching between the simulated
and experimentally obtained data. The black dots represent the
experimental data points, the red line represents the simulated
profile and the blue line denotes the differences at each points
between the experimentally obtained data with the simulated
profile.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING TABLES
Table 1 Chemical composition of the steel according to the invention.
Table 2 Results obtained after full profile Rietveld refinement of the XRD
data in accordance with the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE
INVENTION
According to the invention a steel composition is proposed which can produce a
steel with hardness of 400 VHN minimum (equivalent to an UTS of minimum
1200 MPa) and 20% minimum austenite retained in the final microstructure to
produce an elongation of 20% minimum after hot rolling and coiling in a typical
hot strip mill.
In designing carbide-free bainitic steel which can deliver a very high strength
(>400 VHN), one must avoid the formation of diffusional products such as
polygonal ferrite and cementite. The formation of cementite from austenite
during cooling can be taken care of by the addition of suitable amount of Si
which prevents cementite formation due to its very low solubility in cementite.
To avoid the possible formation of other high temperature diffusional product
named polygonal ferrite, the diffusional bay of the time-temperature-
transformation (TTT) diagram must be shifted to the right side so that even in a
moderate cooling rate ferrite does not form. MUCG83 program6 was used to get
the idea about the possible time-temperature combination for diffusional and
displasive transformation.
During the progress of bainitic transformation, the whole of the austenite grain
does not transform instantaneously to bainite. When the first plate of bainite
forms, it rejects its excess carbon which it can not accommodate, into the
adjacent austenite. Further advancement of transformation therefore is
associated with a lower free energy change due to the higher carbon content of
austenite from which bainite forms. Finally a time is reached when the free
energies of both residual austenite and bainitic ferrite of the same composition
becomes identical and therefore any further transformation becomes
thermodynamically impossible. To represents the locus of all the points, on a
temperature versus carbon concentration plot, where the stress-free austenite
and ferrite of identical composition (with respect to both interstitial and
substitutional alloying elements) are having same free energy7,8. The bainitic
transformation can progress by successive nucleation of subunits of bainitic
ferrite till the carbon concentration in the remaining austenite reaches to its
theoretical limit which is defined by the To curve. It leads to the conclusion that
the maximum amount of bainite which can be produced at any given
transformation temperature is restricted by the retained austenite carbon
concentration which can not exceed the limit given by the To curve.
Bainitic transformation normally happens at such a temperature wherethe
diffusion of any elements except carbon is extremely negligible. Hence it can be
considered that during bainitic transformation no other diffusional reaction
interacts with it and the temperature is too high for other diffusionless
transformation to occur. The carbon enrichment in austenite from adjacent
bainitic-ferrite plates makes it thermally stable at room temperature and it will
only transform to martensite during deformation exhibiting a TRansformation
Induced Plasticity (TRIP) effect. Consequently, the total amount of carbon in the
steel becomes a function of the volume fraction and carbon content of retained
austenite and bainite and can be expressed as
where Vr is the volume fraction of retained austenite after the transformation is
over; x, Cr and Qare the carbon concentrations in bulk, retained austenite
and in bainite, respectively. Vr can be obtained from X-ray diffraction analysis
and can be obtained both from the XRD analysis as well as from theoretical
considerations using To.
During TRIP effect, austenite transforms to martensite and the material gets
work hardened. As a consequence, it is very much essential to have a certain
amount of austenite remain untransformed at the ambient temperature so that
TRIP effect can occur. For this reason, the Ms temperature of this retained
austenite has to be lower than the room temperature, but the corresponding Md
temperature should be close to the maximum temperature reached during
collisions9.
After the isothermal bainitic transformation, there could be regions of
untransformed and residual austenite which may transform to martensite on
further cooling / quenching. The morphology of this kind of austenite is blocky
and exhibits triangular shape in two dimensional sections. Austenite could also
be present there in the microstructure as thin films entrapped between two
neighbouring sub-units of bainite.
Experimental observations had shown that this later variation of austenite
morphology contains a higher amount of C than the islands of residual austenite
resulting from the geometrical partitioning of the prior austenite grain by
different crystallographic variants of bainite sheaves10. This effect was reflected
in the martensitic decomposition of the islands of residual austenite when
quenching to room temperature from the isothermal transformation temperature
whereas the entrapped films are fully retained11. If the volume fraction of bainite
could be increased, the volume fraction of such blocky type austenite would be
decreased; its C content would increase, leading to a decreased final martensite
volume fraction. However, as the degree of transformation to bainite at a
particular isothermal transformation temperature is restricted by thermodynamics
of the incomplete reaction phenomena, the only way to increase the volume
fraction of bainite would then be by lowering the temperature. It was suggested
that the ratio of volume fraction of film / blocky morphology should be 0.9 for
obtaining a good combination of strength - ductility and optimum property.
In a microstructure where the constituent phases are only austenite and bainite,
the sources of strengthening are very much limited. The steel can develop its
strength from the solid solution strengthening of austenite and bainite, very fine
plates of bainites and from the dislocations generated during the isothermal
bainitic transformation. The theoretical strength of this kind of microstructures
can be expressed after Bhadeshia8 as
where KL,KD and Kp are constants, aFe\s the strength of pure annealed iron,
1300 MPa range which is
outstanding considering the simple chemistry and processing of this selected
alloy.
References
1. H. K. D. H. Bhadeshia, Materials Science and Engineering -/I, Volume 481 -
482, pp. 36 - 39, 2008;
2. F. G. Caballero, H. K. D. H. Bhadeshia, K. J. A. Mawella, D. G. Jones and P.
Brown, Materials Science and Technology, Volume 18, pp. 279 - 284, 2002;
3. C. Garcia-Mateo, F. G. Caballero and H. K. D. Bhadeshia, ISU International,
Volume 43, pp. 1238 - 1243, 2003
4. F. G. Caballero, M. J. Santofima, C. Capdevila, C. G. Mateo and C. G. De
Andres, ISU International, Volume 46, pp. 1479 - 1488, 2006;
5. F. G. Caballero, M. J. Santofima, C. Garcia Mateo, J. Chao and C. Garcia de
Andres, Materials and Design, Volume 30, pp. 2077 - 2083, 2009
6. http://www.msm.cam.ac.uk/phase-trans/
7. H. K. D. H. Bhadeshia and D. V. Edmonds, Acta Metallurgica, Vol. 28, 1980,
1265
8. H. K. D. H. Bhadeshia, Bainite in Steels, 2nd edition, The Institute of Materials,
London
9. B. C. DeCooman, Current Opinion in Solid State and Materials Science, Vol. 8,
pp. 285 - 303, 2004
10. H. K. D. H. Bhadeshia and D. V. Edmonds, Acta Metallurgica, Vol. 28, pp.
1265 - 1273, 1980
11. H. K. D. H. Bhadeshia and D. V. Edmonds, Metallurgical Transactions A, Vol.
3, pp . 895, 1979.
12. S. B. Singh and H. K. D. H. Bhadeshia, Materials Science and Engineering A,
Vol. 245, pp. 72 - 79, 1998
13.J. R. Cahoon, W. H. Broughton and A. R. Kutzak, Metallurgical Transactions,
Volume 2, pp. 1979 - 1983, 1971
14. E. J. Pavlina and C. J. Van Tyne, Journal of Materials Engineering and
Performance, Vol. 17, No. 6, pp. 888 - 893, 2008
15. D. J. Dyson and B. Holmes, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, pp. 469 -
474, 1970
WE CLAIM
1. A new grade of ultra high strength steel, consisting of: carbon from 0.2 to 0.5
wt%; silicon content from 1.1 to 2.1 wt%; manganese content from 1.0 to 2.0
wt%, chromium content between 0.5 to 3.0 wt%, aluminium from 0.01 to 0.07
wt%; sulphur and nitrogen content 0.008 wt% and 0.005 maximum,
respectively, the produced steel grade exhibiting a hardness of more than 400
VHN.
2. The Steel grade as claimed in claim 1, wherein the final microstructure of the
steel contains 77-80 bainite with at least 20% retained austenite.
3. The steel grade as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein the retained austenite is
thermally stable at room temperature and is transformable to martensite during
deformation only.
4. The steel grade as claimed in claim 1 and 2, wherein the bainite is nano-
sized bainite of 80-200 nm.
5. The steel grade as claimed in claim 1, 2 wherein the nano-sized bainite as
claimed in claim 4 can be produced during a coil cooling situation.
The invention relates to a continuously cooled bainitic steel composition is
proposed to a steel with hardness of 400 VHN (which is approximately an UTS of
1200 MPa minimum) and 20% retained austenite (to provide total elongation of
minimum 20%) for application in automotive industries. The steel will first be
made in a steel converter having the composition in wt% C: 0.20-0.50, Mn: 1.0-
2.0, Si: 1.1-2.1, Cr: 0.5-3.0, S: 0.008 max, P: 0.025 max, Al: 0.01 -0.07, N:
0.005 max, cast into slab, hot rolling the slab into strip at finish rolling
temperature (FRT) 850-950 C and coiling the strip at coiling temperature 350-
550 C. During the natural cooling of the coil, the bainitic transformation will
continue and the desired properties will be developed when the coil cools down
to room temperature.