Abstract
Austempered ductile iron (ADI) finds wide application in the industry because of its high strength and toughness. The QB' process has been developed to produce a fine microstructure with high fracture toughness in ADI. This process involves reaustenitizing a prequenched ductile iron in the (α + γ) temperature range followed by an isothermal treatment in the bainitic transformation tem-perature range. In the present work, the effect of holding time in the (α + γ) temperature range on the structure and un-notched toughness of ADI has been studied. Prior to the austempering treatment, the as-cast ductile iron was heat treated to obtain martensitic, ferritic, and pearlitic matrix structures. In the case of prequenched material (martensitic matrix), the un-notched impact toughness increased as a function of holding time in the (α + γ) temperature range. The reaustenitization heat treatment also resulted in the precipitation of fine carbide particles, identified as (Fe,Cr,Mn)3C. It was shown that the increase in holding time in the (α + γ) temperature range leads to a reduction in the number of carbide particles. In the case of a ferritic prior structure, a long duration hold in the (α + γ) temperature range resulted in the coarsening of the structure with a marginal increase in the tough-ness. In the case of a pearlitic prior structure, the toughness increased with holding time. This was attributed to the decomposition of the relatively stable carbide around the eutectic cell boundary with longer holding times.
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Formerly Graduate Student, Department of Production Systems Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology
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Kobayashi, T., Yamada, S. Effect of Holding Time in the (α + γ) Temperature Range on Toughness of Specially Austempered Ductile Iron. Metall Mater Trans A 27, 1961–1971 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02651945
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02651945