The development of interphase precipitated nanometre-sized carbides in the advanced low-alloy steels

In this work, the investigation of transmission electron microscopy has elucidated the morphologies of the interphase precipitated carbides in an experimental Ti-Mo-bearing steel into three types: (1) planar interphase precipitation with regular sheet spacing (designated as PIP), (2) curved interphase precipitation with regular sheet spacing (designated as Regular CIP), and (3) curved interphase precipitation with irregular sheet spacing (designated as Irregular CIP). The planar sheets of carbides have also been analyzed and found to be oriented close to ferrite planes {211}, {210} and {111}; the results of transmission electron microscopy provide strong evidence to suggest that the development of interphase-precipitated carbides can be associated with the growth of incoherent ferrite/austenite interface by the ledge mechanism. The sheet spacing and inter-carbide spacing in the sheet have been measured and estimated in this work. The sheet spacing is found to be finer than the inter-carbide spacing in the sheet for all samples investigated. The result reflects that the distribution of interphase-precipitated carbides is anisotropic and cannot be considered random distribution. The relevance of the Orowan mechanism to the non-random distribution of interphase-precipitated carbides has been considered. The contribution of the dispersion of interphase-precipitated carbides to the yield strength of the steel studied has been estimated. It is revealed that an optimum component about 400 MPa contributed by interphaseprecipitated carbides can be achieved, and the finding is consistent with the hardness data. Other examples of the different alloy steels are also addressed.