It is known that adding the appropriate amount of boron to steels dramatically increases their hardness and toughness as a result of the transition of the microstructure from grain boundary nucleation to intragranular nucleation. In this study, precipitation and phase transformation kinetics in heat-affected zones of low-carbon, boron-treated steels are observed directly by high-temperature laser scanning confocal microscopy. The effects of boron content and austenite grain size on the phase transformation process are investigated systematically by quantifying the transformation product, the transformation start temperature, the average length of the ferrite plates, and the average number of potent nucleation sites. Finally, detailed methods for controlling and optimizing the microstructure in the heat-affected zones of low-carbon, boron-treated steels are discussed.
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