• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.8
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• pp.459-465
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• 2018

This paper presents a study of the microstructure and mechanical properties of commercial high-hardness armor (HHA) steels tempered at different temperatures. Although the as-received specimens of all the steels exhibit a tempered martensite structure with lath type morphology, the A steel, which has the smallest carbon content, had the lowest hardness due to reduced solid solution hardening and larger lath thickness, irrespective of tempering conditions. As the tempering temperature increases, the hardness of the steels steadily decreases because dislocation density decreases and the lath thickness of martensite increases due to recovery and over-aging effects. When the variations in hardness plotted as a function of tempering temperature are compared with the hardness of the as-received specimens, it seems that the B steel, which has the highest yield and tensile strengths, is fabricated by quenching, while the other steels are fabricated by quenching and tempering. On the other hand, the impact properties of the steels are affected by specimen orientation and test temperature as well as microstructure. Based on these results, the effect of tempering on the microstructure and mechanical properties of commercial high-hardness armor steels is discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.25-34
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• 1994

To investigate the effect of austenitizing tempratures on the mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of 0.19%C-13.6%Cr martensitic stainless steel, the changes in martensitic trasformation temperatures, mechanical properties and anodic polarization curve were examined after changing the austenitizing temperatures and tempering temperatures. On increasing heating rate at the same austenitizing temperatures, $A_s$, $A_r$ and $M_s$ increased. And the $M_s$ temperature showed to be decreased with increasing austenitizing temperature. With increasing tempering temperature up to $500^{\circ}C$, strength, hardness and impact value were not changed remarkably, on the other hand the tensile strength and hardness decreased and impact value increased after tempering above $550^{\circ}C$ owing to the $M_{23}C_6$ carbide precipitation. The abrupt decrease in elongation at the tempering temperture of $500^{\circ}C$ proved to the precipitation of $M_7C_3$ carbide. The effect of austenitizing temperature on the mechanical properties of the tempered specimen showed to be decreased in impact value and elongation at the austenitizing temperature of $1150^{\circ}C$. At low tempering temperatures the corrosion resistance of the tempered specimen was not changed obviously with increasing tempering temperature. On the other hand, the resistance decreased above the tempering temperature of $600^{\circ}C$ due to the precipitation of $M_{23}C_6$ carbides. The corrosion resistance showed to be improved with increasing the austenitizing temperature owing to the dissolution of carbides.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 1991

This study has been performed to find out the effect of austenitizing temperature, austempering temperature and its holding time, and tempering cycle on the mechanical properties such as impact resistance, hardness etc. of AISI $M_2$ Mo series high speed tool steel austempered or tempered after austempering treatment. The results obtained from the experiment are as follows ; (1) Optical micrograph has revealed that the transformation rate of bainite is delayed as the austenitizing temperature increases and that bainite is most apparently transformed at an austempering temperature of $290^{\circ}C$. (2) The amount of retained austenite during austempering has been analysed to be increased by the X-ray diffraction technique as the transformation product of bainite is increased. It has also been shown that the longer the holding time of austempering, the more the transformation quantity of bainite is formed, exhibiting, however, that the rate of bainitic transformation is considerably retarded after a certain period of holding time elapses. (3) Hardness measurement has shown that hardness values obtained after austempering increase with decreasing the amount of retained austenite. (4) The austempering and then tempering cycle has been formed to give hardness values which are more greatly improved as austenitizing temperature is increased. (5) The mechanical property of the specimen primary-tempered for 1 hour at $550^{\circ}C$ after austempering for 2 hours at $290^{\circ}C$ from the austenitizing temperature range of $1180^{\circ}C$ to $1210^{\circ}C$ have been estimated to be good values.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.56 no.11
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• pp.787-795
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• 2018

The effects of tempering condition on the microstructure and mechanical properties of 30MnB5 hot stamping steel were investigated in this study. Before the tempering, hot-stamped 30MnB5 steel was composed of only ${\alpha}^{\prime}$-martensite microstructure without precipitates. After the tempering at $180^{\circ}C$ for 120 min, nano-sized ${\varepsilon}$-carbides were precipitated in the ${\alpha}^{\prime}$-martensite laths. After tempering at $250^{\circ}C$ for 60 min, cementite was precipitated along the ${\alpha}^{\prime}$-martensite lath boundaries. The cementite was also observed in the specimens tempered at $350^{\circ}C$ for 30 min and $450^{\circ}C$ for 6 min, respectively. The globular ${\alpha}$-ferrite appeared at $350^{\circ}C-30min$ tempering, and the volume fraction of ${\alpha}$-ferrite increased when the tempering temperature was increased. The yield strength increased after tempering, and it reached a peak with the tempering condition of $180^{\circ}C-120min$, due to the nano-sized precipitates in the ${\alpha}^{\prime}$-martensite lath. After the tempering, the steel's ultimate tensile strength (UTS) was decreased due to the reduction in dislocation density and C segregation to lath boundaries. The highest elongation was observed at the $180^{\circ}C-120min$ tempering condition, due to the reduction of residual stress, and the lack of precipitates along the lath boundaries. The $180^{\circ}C-120min$ tempering condition was considered to have outstanding crash performance, according to toughness and anti-intrusion calculation results. In drop tower crash tests, the 30MnB5 door impact beam tempered at $180^{\circ}C$ for 120 min showed better crash performance compared to a 22MnB5 door impact beam.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06c
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• pp.525-530
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• 2001

As a part of efforts to examine feasibility of warm forging near-net-shape process for non-heat-treated steel to replace quenched and tempered S45C steel, the optimized process condition has been determined to be $820^{\circ}C$ for heating, 10/sec for strain rate of forging and approximately 250MPa for flow stress from observed results such as the $A_{3}$ transformation temperature of about $790^{\circ}C$, the fully dynamic recrystallized behavior between $800^{\circ}C\;and\;850^{\circ}C$ when compressed up to 63% engineering strain at 10/sec strain rate, and the high temperature microsturctural stability. Also, controlled cooling rate of $6.3^{\circ}C/sec$ by water-spraying at a rate of $0.10cc/sec-cm^{2}$ for 60seconds followed by air-cooling right after forging process has been considered in this study as a feasible approach based on examination of the microsturcture of mixed ${\alpha}-ferrite$ and pearlite, the hardness and tensile properties meeting specification, and the reduced total cooling time to room temperature. Successive works would be carried out for the impact strength, machinalility, and forgeability at this process in the near future.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2013

The effect of the Mo addition on the high temperature creep properties of the 9Cr-3W steel was also evaluated. Two experimental steels, (9Cr-3W and 9Cr-3W-0.5Mo), were prepared using a vacuum induction melting process, followed by hot rolling and heat treatment processes. Three types of precipitates, ($M_{23}C_6$, Nb-rich MX and V-rich MX) were observed in a typical tempered martensitic matrix. Significant effects of the Mo addition on the tensile properties were not observed. However, the creep properties at $650^{\circ}C$ under applied stresses of 140 and 150 MPa were considerably enhanced by the Mo addition. The microstructural observation after the creep test indicated that the addition of Mo could function to retain the recovery of the martensitic matrix, thus resulting in the enhanced creep properties of the 9Cr-3W-0.5Mo steel. Furthermore coarsening of the $M_{23}C_6$ carbides and formation of Laves phases were observed in both samples after the creep tests.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.15 no.8 s.89
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• pp.621-627
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• 2006

Recently, micro-alloyed steels which could eliminate heat treatments after forging has been developed. These non heat-treated micro-alloyed steels have several advantages over the conventional quenched and tempered steel for cold forging. First of all, long components can be fabricated with a better dimensional accuracy since bending of long forged part after quenching treatment could be avoided. And it is possible to eliminate two energy consuming heat treatment steps, which are a spherodizing before forging and quenching/tempering after forging. Therefore, more cost effective and environment friendly process could be designed. However, there is non-uniform distribution of strain occurred across the forged part, since these non heat-treated micro-alloyed steel use strain hardening mechanism. In the present study, it was investigated how to lessen non-uniformity and increase strength together for cold forging when a baking heat treatment is applied in micro-alloyed steels. For this purpose, micro-alloyed steels developed by Se-A Besteel recently was used for the experiment.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.181-189
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• 1994

The compacts of pure and phosphorus-coated iron powder with 0~0.8%C were sintered at $1100^{\circ}C$ for 40 min. in cracked ammonia gas atmosphere. The tensile and impact strengths were measured and the relationship of the results with carbon content, phosphorus, quenching and tempering was investigated. The results obtained can be summarized as follows : (1) The tensile strength of sintered compacts increased slowly with carbon content. Increase in tensile strength by heat treatment was evident especially in the low carbon specimen. The specimen with phosphorus showed higher strength compared to pure iron compacts value. (2) No inflection point of elasticplastic deformation on stress-strain curve was observed in sintered steel. The elastic modulus of sintered steel had the same tendency as tensile strength. But the elongation showed the opposite tendency. (3) The impact absorption energy of sintered steel without addition of phosphorus decreased successively with carbon content and by quenching and tempering. On the contrary, addition of phosphorus resulted in an increase of the impact absorption energy. Quenching and tempering did not affect the impact energy especially in high carbon content. (4) The main fracture source was pore in specimen and the propagation of crack occured mostly along the grain boundaries. But the intragranular fracture was also observed in high carbon, quenched and tempered specimen, and especially in the specimen with phosphorus.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.119-123
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• 2008

Wear test on two die steels for aluminum die casting was carried out by dipping and rotating the specimens into the molten aluminum maintained $680^{\circ}C{\sim}780^{\circ}C$. The rotating speed of the specimen was $4.5rpm{\sim}20.0rpm$. Diffusion layer was formed between the die steel and molten aluminum, and became thicker with dipping time. Wear rate was not proportional with the thickness of the diffusion layer, but was closely related to the density of the diffusion layer. Wear rate was little affected by the kind of die steel and by the microstructure such as martensite, tempered martensite, and pearlite. Specimen with nitrided surface showed good wear resistance, and its wear rate was decreased with increase in the thickness of nitrided layer. While whole surface was worn in heat treated specimens, wear of nitrided specimens was proceeded by pitting partially.

• Journal of the korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.30-38
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• 1981

The fatigue characteristics of Si-Mn spring steel (AISI 9260-H, JIS SUP-6) were investigated on several heat treatment conditions. Repeated impact loads of 10kg-cm and 15kg-cm energy were applied with a cam roller drop hammer type impact fatigue testing machine. Specimens were oil-quenched, and tempered at 350.deg. C, 450.deg. C and 500.deg. C, respectively. Results obtained in these experiments are summarized as follows.; 1) The fatigue life of the specimen is decreased as the magnitude of constant impact energy is increased, regardless of heat treatment. 2) Generally, the fatigue life of the specimen is decreased as the tensile strength of the materials is increased. 3) Within the limit of these experiments, the fatigue life showed abrupt decrease at the tempering temperature of about 400.deg. C 4) The fatigue life is increased as the initial value of applied stress intensity factor(K$_{1}$) is decreased. This tendency is apparent for the low tensile strength materials.