• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.122-128
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• 2000

Strip casting process is a new technology that makes a near net shape thin strip directly from molten metal. With this process, a large amount of energy and casting cost could be decreased from the abbreviation of reheating and/or hot rolling process. Ductile cast iron which has spheroidal graphite in the matrix is the most commercial and industrial material, because of its supreme strength, toughness, and wear resistance etc. But it cannot be produced to the thin strip owing to difficulty in rolling of ductile cast iron. In this study, ductile cast iron strips are produced by the twin roll strip caster, with different chemical compositions of C, Si, and Mn contents. And then heat-treated, microstructures and mechanical properties are examined. The microstructures of as-cast strip are that of white cast iron which consists of the mixture of cementite and pearlite, but the equiaxed crystal zone of the pearlite or segregation zone of cementite exists in the center region of the strip thickness, which cannot be observed in the rapidly solidified metallic mold cast specimens. This structure is supposed to be formed from the thermal distribution of strip and the rolling force. Comparing with the structures of each strips after heat treatment, increasing Si content makes smaller spheroidal graphite and more compact in the matrix, furthermore the less of Mn content makes the ferrite matrix be obtained clearer and easier. As a result of the tensile test of graphitization heat-treated strips, the yield strengths are about 250 MPa, the tensile strengths are about $430{\sim}500$ MPa, and the elongations are about $10{\sim}13%$. In the case of the strip which has the smaller and more compact spheroidal graphite in the ferrite matrix, the higher tensile strength and better drawability could be obtained.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.139-146
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• 2007

The objective of the present study is to provide statistical resistance statistics for steel-concrete composite plate girder sections under positive and negative moments. Statistical properties on yield strength, tensile strength, elongation, and fracture toughness of domestic structural steel products, gathered from an analysis of over 16,000 samples, were evaluated. Using the steel samples for the plate girder, the bias factor and the coefficient of variation of the ultimate flexural resistance for representative composite plate girder sections under positive and negative flexures were presented. In calculating the ultimate flexural resistance of the composite section, the moment curvature relationships were developed using the incremental load approach considering material nonlinearity for the steel girder. The predicted statistics can be used in the future for the efficient calibration of LRFD code.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.268-276
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• 2016

This paper presents a study on the crashworthiness of the scaled-down stiffened panels used on a Korean icebreaker. In order to validate the crashworthiness of the panels, this paper provides various mechanical properties such as the results of a CVN test, quasi-static tensile test, and high-speed tensile test at arctic temperatures. Two types of steels (EH32 and FH32) were chosen for the material tests. CVN tests revealed that the two steels were equivalent up to −60℃ in terms of their impact energy absorption capacity. However, the toughness of FH32 was significantly superior to that of EH32. EH32 showed slightly higher flow stresses at all temperature levels compared to FH32. The improvement ratios of the yield strengths, tensile strengths, plastic hardening exponents, etc. for FH32, which were obtained from quasi-static tensile tests, showed an apparent ascending tendency with a decrease in temperature. Dynamic tensile test results were obtained for the two temperatures levels of 20℃ and −60℃ with two plastic strain rate levels of 1 s⁻¹ and 100 s⁻¹. A closed form empirical formula proposed by Choung et al. (2011;2013) was shown to be effective at predicting the flow stress increase due to a strain rate increase.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.9
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• pp.2982-2989
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• 2021

One of the consequences of the 475 ℃ embrittlement of duplex stainless steels is the reduction of the resistance to localized corrosion. Therefore, the detection of this type of embrittlement before the material exhibits significant loss in toughness, and corrosion resistance is important to ensure the structural integrity of critical components under corrosion threats. In this research, conductivity measurements are performed using the alternating current potential drop (ACPD) technique with using a portable four-point probe as a nondestructive evaluation (NDE) method for detecting the embrittlement in a 2507 (UNS S32750) super duplex stainless steel (SDSS) aged at 475 ℃ from as-received condition to 300 h. The electric conductivity results were compared against two electrochemical tests namely double loop electrochemical potentiokinetic reactivation (DL-EPR) and critical pitting temperature (CPT). Mechanical tests and the microstructure characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging are conducted to track the progress of embrittlement. It is shown that the electric conductivity correlates with the changes in impact energy, microhardness, and CPT corrosion tests result demonstrating the feasibility of the four-point probe as a possible field-deployable method for evaluating the 475 ℃ embrittlement of 2507 SDSS.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.602-608
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• 2021

Recently, research and development has been conducted to impart high performance and functionality to concrete materials by mixing various reinforcing materials into the matrix. Ductile fiber reinforced concrete using a large amount of fibers shows a distributed multiple cracking behavior, and various studies are being conducted on this material. However, research is focused on static behavioral analysis but studies on cyclic behaviors are not sufficient. In this study, beams were made of ductile fiber reinforced concrete with various fiber contents, and static and fatigue flexural tests were performed. As a result, the effect of fiber content on the flexural behavior was analyzed. Also, the applied load level and fatigue life relationship of ductile fiber reinforced concrete was proposed. Concrete with high ductile property could be achieved with a fiber content of 2%. When 0.5% fiber was more added, the maximum flexural strength was similar, but the flexural toughness is nearly doubled. On the other hand, there was no significant difference in the fatigue life of these two mixtures.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.122-132
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• 2010

Higher strength and fracture toughness of reactor pressure vessel steels can be obtained by changing the material specification from that of Mn-Mo-Ni low alloy steel (SA508 Gr.3) to Ni-Mo-Cr low alloy steel (SA508 Gr.4N). However, the operation temperature of the reactor pressure vessel is more than $300^{\circ}C$ and the reactor operates for over 40 years. Therefore, we need to have phase stability in the high temperature range in order to apply the SA508 Gr.4N low alloy steel for a reactor pressure vessel. It is very important to evaluate the temper embrittlement phenomena of SA508 Gr.4N for an RPV application. In this study, we have performed a Charpy impact test and tensile test of SA508 Gr.4N low alloy steel with changing impurity element contents such as Mn and P. And also, the mechanical properties of these low alloy steels after longterm heat treatment ($450^{\circ}C$, 2000hr) are evaluated. Further, evaluation of the temper embrittlement by fracture analysis was carried out. Temper embrittlement occurs in KL4-Ref and KL4-P, which show a decrease of the elongation and a shifting of the transition curve toward high temperature. The reason for the temper embrittlement is the grain boundary segregation of the impurity element P and the alloying element Ni. However, KL4-Ref shows temper embrittlement phenomena despite the same contents of P and Ni compared with SC-KL4. This result may be caused by the Mn contents. In addition, the behavior of embrittlement is not largely affected by the formation of $M_3P$ phosphide or the coarsening of Cr carbides.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.194-202
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• 2010

Application of a stronger and more durable material for reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) might be an effective way to insure the integrity and increase the efficiency of nuclear power plants. A series of research projects to apply the SA508 Gr.4 steel in ASME code to RPVs are in progress because of its excellent strength and durability compared to commercial RPV steel (SA508 Gr.3 steel). In this study, the microstructural characteristics and mechanical properties of SA508 Gr.3 Mn-Mo-Ni low alloy steel and SA508 Gr.4N Ni-Mo-Cr low alloy steel were investigated. The differences in the stable phases between these two low alloy steels were evaluated by means of a thermodynamic calculation using ThermoCalc. They were then compared to microstructural features and correlated with mechanical properties. Mn-Mo-Ni low alloy steel shows the upper bainite structure that has coarse cementite in the lath boundaries. However, Ni-Mo-Cr low alloy steel shows the mixture of lower bainite and tempered martensite structure that homogeneously precipitates the small carbides such as $M_{23}C_6$ and $M_7C_3$ due to an increase of hardenability and Cr addition. In the mechanical properties, Ni-Mo-Cr low alloy steel has higher strength and toughness than Mn-Mo-Ni low alloy steel. Ni and Cr additions increase the strength by solid solution hardening. In addition, microstructural changes from upper bainite to tempered martensite improve the strength of the low alloy steel by grain refining effect, and the changes in the precipitation behavior by Cr addition improve the ductile-brittle transition behavior along with a toughening effect of Ni addition.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.46 no.12
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• pp.771-779
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• 2008

An effective way of increasing the strength and fracture toughness of reactor pressure vessel steels is to change the material specification from that of Mn-Mo-Ni low alloy steel(SA508 Gr.3) to Ni-Mo-Cr low alloy steel(SA508 Gr.4N). In this study, we evaluate the effects of alloying elements on the microstructural characteristics of Ni-Mo-Cr low alloy steel. The changes in the stable phase of the SA508 Gr.4N low alloy steel with alloying elements were evaluated by means of a thermodynamic calculation conducted with the software ThermoCalc. The changes were then compared with the observed microstructural results. The calculation of Ni-Mo-Cr low alloy steels confirms that the ferrite formation temperature decreases as the Ni content increases because of the austenite stabilization effect. Consequently, in the microscopic observation, the lath martensitic structure becomes finer as the Ni content increases. However, Ni does not affect the carbide phases such as $M_{23}C_6 $ and $M_7C_3$. When the Cr content decreases, the carbide phases become unstable and carbide coarsening can be observed. With an increase in the Mo content, the $M_2C$ phase becomes stable instead of the $M_7C_3$ phase. This behavior is also observed in TEM. From the calculation results and the observation results of the microstructure, the thermodynamic calculation can be used to predict the precipitation behavior.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.317-324
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• 2021

High-strength low-alloy (HSLA) steels show excellent toughness when trace amounts of transition elements are added. In steels, prior austenite grain size (PAGS), which is often determined by the number of added elements, is a critical factor in determining the mechanical properties of the material. In this study, we used two etching methods to measure and compare the PAGS of specimens with bainitic HSLA steels having different Nb contents These two methods were nital etching and picric acid etching. Both methods confirmed that the sample with high Nb content exhibited smaller PAGS than its low Nb counterpart because of Nb's ability to hinder austenite recrystallization at high temperatures. Although both etching approaches are beneficial to PAGS estimation, the picric acid etching method has the advantage of enabling observation of the interface containing Nb precipitate. By contrast, the nital etching method has the advantage of a very short etching time (5 s) in determining the PAGS, with the picric acid etching method being considerably longer (5 h).

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.44-50
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• 2022

Transition metal carbides (TMCs) are used to process difficult-to-cut materials due to the trend of requiring superior wear and corrosion properties compared to those of cemented carbides used in the cutting industry. In this study, TMC (TiC, TaC, Mo₂C, and NbC)-based cermets were consolidated by spark plasma sintering at 1,300 ℃ (60 ℃min) with a pressure of 60 MPa with Co addition. The sintering behavior of TMCs depended exponentially on the function of the sintering exponent. The Mo₂C-6Co cermet was fully densified, with a relative density of 100.0 %. The Co-binder penetrated the hard phase (carbides) by dissolving and re-precipitating, which completely densified the material. The mechanical properties of the TMCs were determined according to their grain size and elastic modulus: TiC-6Co showed the highest hardness of 1,872.9 MPa, while NbC-6Co showed the highest fracture toughness of 10.6 MPa^*m^1/2. The strengthened grain boundaries due to high interfacial energy could cause a high elastic modules; therefore, TiC-6Co showed a value of 452 ± 12 GPa.