An investigation on the tensile and abrasive wear properties of plain carbon dual phase steels

Abstract

A 0.6 C steel has been studied to determine the effect of morphology of the second-phase martensite on tensile and wear properties of dual phase steels (DPS). For this reason, two different heat treatments (intercritical and intermediate heat treatments) have been applied to the steel in order to obtain different dual-phase. However, one set of intermediate quenched samples was tempered. It was observed that volume fraction of martensite and grain size increased as the annealing temperature and time increased in the intercriticaly annealed steels. The specimens that have different microstructures were subjected to tensile testing and compared according to their heat treatment conditions. It was observed that steels obtained with intermediate quenching (IQ steels) lead to highest tensile strength but low elongation and wear resistance. In contrast to their elongation properties, tempered IQ steels exhibited a lower strength than samples obtained with intermediate quenching. It is argued that optimum mechanical properties in IQ steel can best be achieved by obtaining a microstructure containing fine, fibrous needle-like martensite.