Materials Science and Engineering A 476 (2008) 126131

Inuence of different heat treatment parameters on microstructure and mechanical properties of CMn strapping quality steels
S.N. Prasad a, , A. Saxena a , M.M.S. Sodhi b , P.N. Tripathi b
a

Research and Development Centre for Iron and Steel, Steel Authority of India Limited, Ranchi 834002, India b Bokaro Steel Plant, Steel Authority of India Limited, Bokaro Steel City 827001, India Received 28 December 2006; received in revised form 18 April 2007; accepted 19 April 2007

Abstract Strap steel produced at Bokaro Steel Plant is a plain CMn (nominal chemistry C: 0.35%, Mn: 1.35% and Si: 0.25%) cold rolled steel that is austenitised at 930 C and austempered in a lead bath at 450 C. The microstructure consists of ferrite, pearlite and bainite also to achieve ultimate tensile strength (UTS) 900 MPa min and elongation 8% min on 150 mm gauge length. In order to achieve such a microstructure consistently, inuence of chemistry and different heat treatment parameters on strapping quality steels have been studied. It has been found in the laboratory that increase in Mn (from 1.35 to 1.55%) and Si (from 0.25 to 0.45%) in a 0.32% C strap steel results in 100% bainite in the microstructure after austenitisation and subsequent air cooling. The austempering of the modied strap steel (0.4% C, 1.65% Mn and 0.5% Si) at Bokaro Steel Plant results in excessively high UTS (10401100 MPa) without affecting the elongation value (810%, 150 mm GL). The microstructure of the austempered straps of modied chemistry consists of cent percent bainite. The austenitisation and subsequent air cooling without austempering of the modied strap steel result in a microstructure consisting of ferrite, pearlite and bainite. The UTS (867875 MPa) achieved marginally falls short of the specied values (900 MPa min) while % elongation values (810%, 150 mm GL) conform to the IRS: P-41 specication. 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Strap steel; Austempering; Microstructure; Mechanical properties

1. Introduction Strap steel is produced through BOF-CC-HSM-CRM-slitting route at BSL. The straps cut from the cold rolled sheet are subsequently austenitised at 930 C and austempered passing through a lead bath maintained at 450 C. The microstructure consists of ferritepearlite with some amount of bainite which is needed for high strength (900 MPa) with elongation 8% (150 mm GL). Bainitic transformation takes place at temperatures between those of ferritepearlite reaction and martensite reaction. Therefore, it is possible to produce a range of strengths extending between the highest strength in the ferrite pearlite structures and the strength of martensite by varying the temperature at which austenite transforms to ferrite [13]. Production

Abbreviations: , ferrite; M/A, martensite/austenite; UTS, ultimate tensile strength; YS, yield strength; SEM, scanning electron microscopy; GL, gauge length; IRS, Indian Railways Specication; BOF, basic oxygen furnace Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9431701971/6512411132x2294; fax: +91 6512411064. E-mail address: snprasad1002@rediffmail.com (S.N. Prasad). 0921-5093/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.msea.2007.04.071

of bainitic structure by air cooling eliminates economic disadvantage of quenching and subsequent tempering/austempering. It also prevents quench cracking and minimizes distortion during heat treatment. Use of lower carbon content or lower carbon equivalent in bainitic steel is required for achieving good weldability and formability. For achieving properties with minimum of variation over wide range of section size, the bainitic transformation C curve with a at top is required. The highest possible bainitic hardenability coupled with the minimum martensitic hardenability is needed to obtain the maximum impact properties consistent with the strength [4] levels achieved. It is well established that addition of about 0.002% B retards the polygonal ferrite transformation which nucleates at the austenite grain boundary. In fact, boron being in solution in austenite, segregates to the austenite grain boundaries at which the polygonal ferrite nucleates. Boron in the form of oxide or nitride is useless and, therefore, the steels must be aluminium killed. High nitrogen (>30 ppm) steels are treated with Ti to suppress formation of boron nitride [5] which decreases the amount of boron in solution. Boron factor decreases with the increase of

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carbon in steel and is about unity for C = 0.90% (i.e. about the eutectoid carbon content) [6,7]. In addition to the B, Mn, Mo and Cr additions, microalloying by Nb increases bainitic hardenability [811]. The combined addition of 0.024% Nb with about 0.5% increase over 0.45% of Mn content in Cor-Ten A steel could change completely the ferritepearlite microstructure to a portion of so called granular bainite on hot rolling [12,13]. Additions of these elements in the Cor-Ten B steel also have increased bainitic hardenability and produce bainiteferrite dual phase steel on hot rolling [14]. The structure consists of polygonal ferrite/acicular ferrite and the high carbon micro-constituent composed of martensite/austenite (M/A) constituent [1320]. In a recent work at Bokaro Steel Plant [21], austempering of 0.4% C and 1.35% Mn strap steel at 450 C in a lead bath after austenitisation at 930 C has resulted in a microstructure consisting of ferritepearlite with some amount of bainite. The austenitisation temperature (930 C) was higher to allow dissolution of all cementite before the strap comes out of the austenitisation furnace. The lead bath temperature was optimized to be 450 C for the required properties of the strap. The UTS and % elongation of this steel, so treated, were generally more than 900 MPa and 9% (150 mm GL), respectively. However, due to some variations in shop parameters including austenitisation and austempering temperatures, consistency in properties was not achieved in about 20% of straps produced. In view of the above, a study was taken up to examine the inuence of the chemistry (Mn, Si and B) and the heat treatment parameters on the strap steel in the laboratory and subsequently in the steel plant. Based on the laboratory study, the chemistry was modied for heat making in steel plant. The austempering of the modied steel has resulted in excessively higher properties than specied in IRS: P-41 specication. Therefore, experiments on production of simply air-cooled straps after austenitisation were also carried out which gave encouraging results. The microstructure and mechanical properties of the straps produced with different heat treatments are discussed in this paper. 2. Experimental A batch of three steels (designated as steels 1, 2 and 3 in Table 1) with varying amounts of C, Mn and Si were made

Table 1 Chemical compositions (wt.%) of heats of straps steels Steel 1 2 3 4 5 C 0.32 0.36 0.26 0.43 0.40 Mn 1.55 1.26 1.41 1.62 1.35 S 0.026 0.033 0.025 0.003 0.025 P 0.048 0.029 0.03 0.038 0.025 Si 0.46 0.39 0.52 0.48 0.2 Al 0.04 0.08 0.025 0.032 0.03 B Trace 0.0016 0.0014

by melting in 35 kg vacuum induction furnace and cast into ingots. The defective portions of the ingots comprising about 10% of the height from bottom and 25% from top were discarded. The remaining portions of the ingots were soaked at 1250 C for 2 h and hot rolled to sheets with a nal thickness of 3.4 mm in multipasses (over an approximate temperature range of 1200850 C) in an experimental rolling mill. Subsequently, the hot rolled sheets were pickled and cold rolled in multipasses to 1.27 mm thick sheets. Thirty-two millimeter wide straps from all the three types of steels were cut. They were austenitised in a mufe furnace for 15 min at 930 C and air cooled. The tensile properties of the heat-treated samples were evaluated using an Instron machine model (1273) at constant cross-head speed of 2 mm m1 . Standard specimens of 50 mm gauge length were used for tensile tests. Pieces were cut from the heat-treated samples for optical microscopy. They were mechanically polished and etched with 2% nital. Optical microstructures of the steels were observed with a NEOPHOT metallograph. Having assessed the microstructure and mechanical properties of the above three steels made in the laboratory, an industrial heat (steel 4 in Table 1) was made at Bokaro Steel Plant through BOF-CC-HSM-CR route. Slitting of the cold rolled coil was carried out as usual in 32 mm straps. Heat treatment of the straps was carried out in the austempering line (Fig. 1) of Bokaro Steel Plant as per the following parameters: (1) Uncoiling austenitisation of moving strap at 930 C austempering of moving strap through lead bath maintained at 450 C air cooling coiling. (2) Uncoiling austenitisation of moving strap at 930 C air cooling of strap passing through open windows of exhaust hoods over the lead bath coiling (faster air cooling without austempering).

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of austempering unit at Bokaro Steel Plant.

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Table 2 Mechanical properties of cold rolled sheet austenitised and air cooled in the laboratory Steel 1 2 3 YS (MPa) 644 681 524 601 507 488 UTS (MPa) 801 850 719 722 653 650 % El (50 mm GL) 14.34 15.5 11.52 15.2 15.5 15.7

(3) Uncoiling austenitisation of moving strap at 930 C air cooling of strap passing through closed windows of exhaust hoods over the lead bath coiling (without austempering). After the above heat treatments, tensile testing of the straps was carried out using specimens of 150 mm gauge length. As above, samples for metallography were prepared and etched with 2% nital. Optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy were carried out to study the different micro-constituents present in the steel. 3. Results and discussion The yield strength (YS), ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and % elongation of the three laboratory steels (13, Table 1) are presented in Table 2. The data presented are for the two samples tested in the case of each steel. The YS (644, 681 MPa) and UTS (801, 850 MPa) of steel 1 are the highest, though there is wide variation in the results of two samples tested. The % elongation for all the steels is about 15% except one sample of steel 2 which is 11.5%. The optical micrographs of steels 13 (Table 1) are shown in Fig. 2ac, respectively. Steel 1 shows a microstructure consisting of cent percent upper bainite (Fig. 2a). The microstructures of steels 2 and 3 consist of mostly ferrite and pearlite (Fig. 2b and c, respectively). The mechanical properties achieved in the plant trials of modied strap steel 4 (Table 1) are given in Table 3. The strap austenitised at 930 C, austempered at 450 C in lead bath and subsequently air cooled (treatment 1 in Table 3) has very high UTS (10401100 MPa) without any sacrice in the elongation (910%). On the other hand, when the same strap after austenitising at the same temperature (930 C) was simply air cooled (without austempering) passing through holes made in open windows exhaust hoods over the lead bath (treatment 2 in Table 3), the UTS and % elongation achieved were 867875 MPa and 911%, respectively. In the next experiment, the same strap with the same austenitisation temperature (930 C) when passed through closed window hoods (i.e. without ventilation, lesser cooling rate) resulted in slightly lower UTS (845850 MPa) with 911% elongation level. The UTS and elongation achieved in the conventional strap steel no. 5 in Table 1 are in the range of 870970 MPa and 810%, respectively, when all the processing parameters are closely maintained.

Fig. 2. Microstructures of laboratory steels showing: (a) completely upper bainite in steel 1, (b) mostly ferritepearlite in steel 2 and (c) mostly ferritepearlite in steel 3.

The optical micrographs of plant trial samples are given in Fig. 3. Fig. 3a shows very uniformly distributed carbides in austempered-modied steel (treatment 1) and it appears to be cent percent bainite. Fig. 3b also shows bainite along with some ferrite grains in the strap austenitised and air cooled with open windows of exhaust hoods (treatment 2). Fig. 3c shows similar microstructure in austenitised and air-cooled sample with closed windows of exhaust hoods (treatment 3) but the ferrite grains are relatively more in this case. Fig. 4 shows banded microstructure in air-cooled straps produced through closed windows of exhaust hoods. The SEM micrographs of the straps produced with three different types of treatments are presented in Fig. 5. Fig. 5a

S.N. Prasad et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 476 (2008) 126131 Table 3 Mechanical properties of straps heat treated in austempering line, R&R shop, BSL Sample number/treatment number 1 2 3 Treatment/IRS: P-41 specication Austenitisation: austempering: in lead bath Austenitisation: 930 C air cooling with open windows of exhaust hoods on the way of moving strap Austenitisation: 930 C air cooling with closed windows of exhaust hoods on the way of moving strap Conventional steel IRS: P-41 specication 930 C, 450 C UTS (MPa) 10401100 867875 845850 870970 >900

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% El (150 mm GL) 910 1011 911 810 >8

shows almost cent percent non-lamellar carbides in austempered straps (sample 1 in Table 3). Fig. 5b and c shows microstructures consisting of lamellar as well as non-lamellar carbides indicating presence of pearlite and bainite in addition to ferrite in the air-cooled strap (without austempering, sample 2 in Table 3)

produced with open windows of exhaust hoods. Fig. 5d shows similar SEM micrograph consisting of ferrite, pearlite and bainite observed in the air-cooled strap produced closed windows exhaust hoods (sample 3 in Table 3). The microstructure of steel 1 appears to be completely bainite (Fig. 2a) where as steels 2 and 3 very clearly show polygonal ferrite and pearlite grains in Fig. 2b and c, respectively. While examining the chemistry of the three laboratory steels, steel 1 contains maximum amount of Mn (1.52%), the Si content is 0.46% where as C content of 0.32% is less than steel 2 (0.36%) but more than steel 3 (0.26%). Thus, it appears that Mn has signicant contribution in increasing bainitic hardenability of steel 1 which has resulted completely in bainitic transformation after 930 C austenitisation and subsequent air cooling. On the other hand, steel 2 having 0.36% C, 1.26% Mn, 0.39% Si and additionally 16 ppm of B, which is well known for increasing hardenability, could produce only polygonal ferrite pearlite. The addition of 14 ppm of B in steel 3 with 0.26% C, 1.41% Mn and 0.52% Si behaved in a manner similar to steel 2 leading to predominantly polygonal ferrite and pearlite microstructure. While examining the mechanical properties of the three experimental steels (Table 1), the UTS of steel 1 is the highest of all (801, 850 MPa) with an elongation level of 15% (50 mm GL). This is quite obvious because the microstructure of this steel consists of cent percent bainite. The UTS of steel 2 is about 720 MPa. Lower UTS of this steel is attributed to the lower Mn content (1.26%) of this steel, though it has got additionally 16 ppm of B. Thus, Mn appears to be very effective for increasing bainitic hardenability of the steel. Due to

Fig. 3. Microstructures of steel 4 (steel plant heat) showing: (a) mostly bainite as a result of treatment 1, (b) ferrite grains in bainite/pearlite as a result of treatment 2 and (c) slightly more and bigger ferrite grains in bainite/pearlite as a result of treatment 3.

Fig. 4. Banded microstructure of strap produced on air cooling passing through closed windows of exhaust hoods (treatment 3).

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Fig. 5. SEM micrographs of steel 4 (steel plant heat) showing: (a) non-lamellar carbides of bainite as a result of treatment 1, (b and c) non-lamellar as well as lamellar carbides in bainite/pearlite formed as a result of treatment 2 and (d) non-lamellar and lamellar carbides in bainite formed as a result of treatment 3.

lower C (0.26%) and lower Mn (1.41%) even with 14 ppm of B, steel 3 has got the lowest UTS (about 651 MPa). The microstructure is also ferritepearlite which results in lower UTS. The ductility (% elongation) of all the steels is similar (15%). Therefore, the microstructure of steel 1 is very useful to achieve a high strengthductility combination. Generally in ferritepearlite steel, when the UTS increases, the ductility (% elongation) decreases. Therefore, the kind of microstructure developed in steel 1, simply after austenitisation and air cooling in the laboratory, is desirable for the strap steel produced at BSL, Bokaro, as it has got the highest strength without any sacrice in the ductility. However, as per the IRS: P-41 specication the required UTS is 900 MPa with 8% elongation (GL 150 mm). Thus, though the % El (15%, 50 mm GL) is enough, the UTS falls short of specied value in IRS: P-41 specication. To compensate for the lower strength, the steel was redesigned with little higher Mn and Si (for solid solution hardening). The modied strap steel 4 (Table 1) was processed through BOFCC-HSM-CRM-slitting route and subsequently different heat treatments were carried out at Bokaro Steel Plant. The high UTS (10401100 MPa) (Table 3) with adequate ductility (910% elongation) is attributed to the bainitic microstructure (Figs. 3a and 5a) achieved in the austempered strap with modied chemistry (steel 4). However, as per the IRS: P-41 specication, the requirements of UTS and % elongation are only 900 MPa and 8% (150 mm GL), respectively. Therefore, having achieved such over strength after austempering, treatment 2 (air cooling) of the straps was carried out which resulted in UTS 867875 MPa and elongation 911%. The lowering of UTS is quite expected as transformation takes place at a range of temperature during air cooling. Before it comes to BS temperature some amount of ferrite and pearlite is also expected.

The optical micrograph for treatment 2 (Fig. 3b) shows ferrite grains and the SEM micrograph (Fig. 5b) shows pearlite lamellae. Similarly, in case of treatment 3 (slow air cooling), the lesser UTS (845850 MPa) is attributed to relatively more ferrite grains which are also slightly bigger in size (Fig. 3c). Thus, the modied strap steel has resulted in excessively high UTS (10401100 MPa) after austempering and slightly lesser UTS (867875 MPa) than specication (900 MPa) simply after austenitisation and air cooling. Banded microstructure (Fig. 4) has been observed at few locations in the case of treatment 3. This is due to slow cooling rate in this case. During early solidication stage, dendritic structure leads to rejection of Mn in the interdendritic regions [22,23]. Due to its low diffusivity in austenite phase, Mn remains segregated on subsequent solidication of interdendritic region and Mn rich regions spread out across the plate thickness due to heavy deformation in the hot rolling [24]. When such steel is austenitised and air cooled, Mn depleted regions (with higher Ar3 temperature) transform to ferrite before transformation of Mn rich areas (with lower Ar3 temperature). The carbon atoms rejected from Mn depleted austenite tend to diffuse and segregate to the Mn rich area where transformation occurs at lower temperature [25]. Subsequently, these segregated carbon atoms form pearlite/cementite in the form of banded structure when the steel is cooled slowly below Ar1 . In view of the above studies, it appears that the conventional austempering process of manufacturing straps may be replaced by a much simpler and economical process of austenitisation and air cooling of straps. It may require one more modication in chemistry keeping in mind load of the cold rolling mill. Forced air cooling of straps may also be helpful.

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4. Conclusions The following conclusions may be drawn based on the present studies on the manufacture of strap steel at BSL. (1) Increase in Mn (from 1.35 to 1.55%) and Si (from 0.2 to 0.45%) in a 0.32% C strap steel results in formation of 100% upper bainite in the microstructure after austenitisation and subsequent air cooling. (2) Austempering of the modied strap steel (0.4% C, 1.65% Mn and 0.5% Si) results in excessively high UTS (10401100 MPa) without affecting the elongation value (810%, 150 mm GL). (3) The microstructure of the austempered straps of modied chemistry consists of cent percent bainite. (4) Austenitisation and air cooling of the modied strap steel result in a microstructure consisting of ferrite, pearlite and bainite. The UTS (867875 MPa) achieved marginally falls short of the specied values (900 MPa min), while % elongation values (810%, 150 mm GL) conform to the IRS: P-41 specication. Acknowledgements The taskforce expresses thanks to Mr. A.K. Singh DGM (R&R) for his continuous help during the execution of the project. Thanks are also due to Dr. Vinod Kumar, Sr. Manager (SP), for his help during cold rolling at DMRL Hyderabad. The taskforce also acknowledges gratefully the encouragement and support provided by managements of BSL and RDCIS. References
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