Material behaviour of a dual hardening steel under thermomechanical loading

摘要

Dual hardening steels are a group of metals, which reach their material properties through a combination of strengthening via carbides and intermetallic precipitates. Because of their combination of mechanical properties, dual hardening steels are a promising alloying concept for hot-work applications. The applied materials for hot-work applications have to meet certain requirements, such as high hardness, high thermal strength, thermal stability, and fracture toughness. In this paper, a dual hardening steel in different heat treatment conditions was tested under out-of-phase thermomechanical loading conditions. All tests were done under full reverse strain control and the minimum temperature was kept constant. In the thermomechanical fatigue tests, solution annealed samples reached higher lifetimes compared with aged specimens. The hardness measurements show that the starting procedure of the thermomechanical fatigue leads to an increase of the hardness approximate to the values of the specimens with the ageing heat treatment. Cyclic softening can be observed in the test with the highest maximum temperature of 600 degrees C. An increase of the maximum temperature also causes a decrease of the lifetime.