Low-temperature embrittlement restricts the reliability of wear-resistant cast steels in extreme environments. This study investigates the distinct toughening mechanisms induced by nickel (Ni) alloying and trace zirconium (Zr) microalloying in a martensitic cast steel. While Ni addition refines the matrix substructure, it minimally affects detrimental angular inclusions. Conversely, Zr microalloying triggers a comprehensive microstructural modification, significantly increasing the density of high-angle grain boundaries (HAGBs) and driving the spheroidization of coarse inclusions via heterogeneous nucleation. Consequently, both strategies circumvent the classic strength-ductility trade-off, substantially enhancing tensile ductility and −40°C impact toughness without sacrificing yield strength or macroscopic hardness. However, their fracture mechanisms diverge fundamentally. Ni toughens the matrix primarily through a “tortuous path” mechanism driven by grain refinement. In contrast, Zr microalloying promotes geometric crack-tip blunting and micro-void coalescence at the spheroidized inclusions. This geometric blunting, synergistically coupled with severe crack deflection by the ultra-dense HAGB network, thoroughly suppresses rapid cleavage. These fundamental insights provide a robust physical metallurgy framework for designing advanced wear-resistant steels tailored for cryogenic applications.

The influence of tempering temperatures (200, 350, and 500 °C) on the microstructure and mechanical properties of high chromium (Cr) martensitic steel is investigated. The evolution of microstructure and mechanical properties of the heat-treated steels was thoroughly analyzed. The tempering temperature emerged as a key factor influencing the morphology of martensitic laths and the precipitation of carbides, specifically Cr23C6 and Fe3C. Variations in austenite content, essential for enhancing impact toughness and ductility, were observed at different tempering temperatures. Tempered steels showed reductions in Rockwell hardness and tensile strength, along with an increase in yield strength relative to the as-quenched state. The impact toughness was significantly affected by tempering, with impact energy reaching 337 J at 350 °C. Significantly, tempering at 350 °C improved elongation to 10.0

The microstructural evolution, mechanical properties, and wear behavior of medium manganese steels (MMSs) with varying aluminum (Al) contents were investigated. It was observed that the microstructure of MMS transferred from a predominantly martensitic phase (in the Al-free state) to a ferrite/martensite or ferrite/austenite duplex structure with increasing Al content. The hardness of MMS decreased with Al addition, while the impact absorbed energy and yield strength were optimized in 2% Al-containing variant. Frictional wear tests demonstrated that 2 wt.% Al-MMS exhibited superior wear resistance due to the twinning-induced plasticity effect. Conversely, under impact abrasion wear conditions, the Al-free MMS displayed the lowest mass loss, attributing to high surface hardness and remarkable work hardening capacity. These findings indicates that Al content-tailored MMSs can be selectively applied in different wear environments, with 2 wt.% Al-MMS being optimal for static load conditions and the Al-free MMS for dynamic impact abrasion scenarios.

This study investigates the influence of varying Aluminium contents on the microstructure and mechanical properties of high Manganese steel. Microstructural characterization was performed using optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Mechanical property assessments included hardness testing, room temperature impact testing, and tensile testing. The results indicated that adding Aluminium content refines the austenite grains in high Manganese steel, causing a shift from coarse austenite to a more complex multiphase structure. The gradual increase of ferrite as well as other second-phase particles with increasing Aluminium content also has an effect on the hardness of high Manganese steel. The hardness of high Manganese steel is as high as 501.4 HBW when the Aluminium content is 11%. However, the impact and tensile properties initially increase and then decrease, which is attributed to changes in grain size and fracture mechanisms. The maximum impact toughness of high Manganese steel is 17 J at 4% Aluminium content.

This study investigates the effects of titanium microalloying on the microstructure, mechanical properties, and fracture behavior of a high-chromium martensitic steel. Through microstructure analysis and quantitative precipitate characterization, it is revealed that Ti addition refines precipitates by forming Ti-containing particles, suppresses coarse sulfide formation, and elevates geometrically necessary dislocation density. The Ti-containing steel exhibits a 161 % improvement in impact toughness with minimal hardness reduction and enhanced elongation. Schmid factor analysis demonstrates that Ti promotes slip system activation, enabling homogeneous plastic deformation. Fractography confirms a ductile-brittle transition, with refined dimples and tortuous crack paths in Ti-modified steel. These improvements may be attributed to synergistic mechanisms: dislocationprecipitate interactions (shearing and pile-up), dislocation pileup at Cr-rich precipitates and shearing of Ti(C, N) particles. The work delineates Ti's multi-scale regulation strategy for resolving strength-toughness trade-offs in high-Cr martensitic steels, advancing their engineering applicability under extreme loading conditions.

The impact-abrasive wear behavior of high-C martensitic steel was investigated, taking into account varying carbon (C) contents and different tempering temperatures. The evaluation was done through comprehensive microstructural characterization, analysis of worn surface morphology, and measurement of key performance like impact toughness and surface hardening. The findings demonstrate that increasing C content and tempering temperature both has a positive effect on wear resistance, with C content exhibiting a more pronounced influence compared to the tempering temperature. The improved wear resistance of the steel with higher C content and tempering at a higher temperature can be attributed to its enhanced impact toughness. This increase in impact toughness is primarily a result of microstructural refinement and alterations in carbide morphology. Moreover, cyclic impact loading induces surface hardening due to dislocation strengthening within the martensite and the retained austenite, leading to an increase in surface hardness. The combination of surface hardening and excellent impact toughness synergistically contributes to the overall improved wear resistance observed in the experimental steel with higher C content after tempering at a higher temperature. Additionally, the dominant features observed on the worn surface are scratches and substrate delamination, indicative of a wear mechanism of the experimental steels characterized by micro-cutting/ploughing and fatigue wear.

The necessity for high performance and low-cost materials caused the researchers worldwide to switch the focus from traditional steel materials to new particle-reinforced steel matrix composites (PR-SMCs). In the recent pasts, a significant effort has been made in this direction to fabricate numerous types of PR-SMCs. Especially, PR-SMCs have attracted much attention in the field of wear resistance due to their excellent overall performance. However, the PR-SMCs preparation process and the choice of reinforcement particles can vary considerably depending on the performance requirements under different conditions of use. This review article aims to explore the recent advancements in the preparation of PR-SMCs. The advantages and disadvantages of the composites under different preparation processes are analyzed and summarized in detail. The future scope of the PR-SMCs is also briefly discussed at the end of the manuscript.

In this study, three types of wear-resistant materials including high-chromium cast iron (HCCI), medium-chromium cast steel (MCCS), and low-chromium cast steel (LCCS), with similar macroscopic hardness but distinct microstructures and impact toughness have been prepared. The wear behavior of these three materials under different loads were investigated by impact wear experiments under dynamic load and three-body wear experiments under static load. The results revealed that the almost fully martensitised MCCS had the least mass loss under low dynamic impact load wear conditions. The brittleness associated with large carbides intensified with increasing impact load, culminating in a significant reduction in the impact wear resistance of HCCI. The residual austenite rapidly transformed into martensite, thereby effectively improving the wear resistance of the LCCS. Comparatively, the experimental steels were all characterized by fatigue wear of the abrasive on the material surface under static wear conditions at low loads and showed similar wear resistance. Conversely, the large carbides demonstrated superior wear resistance under conditions of high static load, and HCCI had the best wear resistance.

In this study, four high-chromium wear-resistant steels with varying vanadium contents were prepared. Their mechanical properties, corrosion behaviour and impact–abrasion–corrosion behaviour were comprehensively investigated in a simulated corrosive slurry environment. The result indicated the effectiveness of vanadium in enhancing the impact toughness of the steel. Notably, high-chromium steel with 0.2% vanadium exhibited notable characteristics, including a Rockwell hardness of 56.2 HRC and an impact toughness of 113.5 J. Introducing vanadium enhanced the corrosion resistance of high-chromium steels in electrochemical experiments. In terms of impact–abrasion–corrosion performance, the high-chromium steel containing 0.2% vanadium exhibited the highest resistance to impact–abrasion–corrosion when subjected to both the impact energies of 3 J and 6 J. Comprehensive examinations of surface and cross-sectional damage, coupled with detailed microstructure and microhardness analyses, revealed that the development of a white etching layer on the material's surface is crucial to enhancing its resistance to impact–abrasion–corrosion.

Medium-manganese (Mn) steel (MMS) has remarkable characteristics of high strength, strong work-hardening capacity, and wear resistance, being a promising third-generation advanced high-strength steel with lower raw material cost compared with other generations of advanced high-strength steel. The chemical composition and processing route play critical roles in determining the microstructural evolution of the MMS, and the microstructure composition significantly influences the mechanical, corrosion and wear properties of the steel. Hence, a lot of research work focus on exploring the direct relation between microstructural evolution and mechanical/corrosion/wear properties, and the progress has the following crucial aspects: (1) alloying design on the phase composition and carbide precipitation, (2) processing route on regulating microstructure evolution and twinning-induced plasticity and/or transformation-induced plasticity strengthening mechanism, (3) work-hardening, corrosion, and corrosion resistance of the regulated MMS, and (4) fracture and failure mechanism of MMS under tensile, corrosion and wear damages, as well as the improvement strategies.

以Fe、Ti、W和石墨粉为原料,采用真空烧结技术制备铁基复合材料.通过改变粉末中的W/Ti原子比,探究其对复合材料组织和相变的影响规律.结果表明:球磨后的粉末活性有所增加,并出现TixW1?x不稳定过渡相;材料的相变反应温度会随着粉末中W含量增加而升高,DSC曲线尖锐的放热峰会逐渐变宽、变缓,剧烈的反应得到控制;粉末经烧结后会生成TiC、WC和Ti4WC5等增强相,当粉末的W/Ti比从2:8增加至4:6时,反应产物中3种增强相的占比从84.09％增加至93.07％,生成物中WC的占比从32.45％迅速增加到78.5％.此外,由于复合材料组织中多种物相的存在,彼此间的取向差异会引起组织中出现微应变.随着粉末中W/Ti比的增加,复合材料组织中的微应变逐渐增大;与粉末W/Ti比为2:8制得的复合材料相比,粉末的W/Ti比为4:6时制备的复合材料组织中的微应变提高了2.84倍.因此,通过调节W/Ti含量可实现对钢铁基复合材料微观组织和增强相的优化.

Wear-resistant steels with different zirconium contents were prepared to investigate the influence of zirconium on the cavitation erosion-corrosion behaviour in sodium chloride solution. To better understand the behaviour of these steels, the microstructure, mechanical properties and corrosion behaviour were also evaluated. It was found that the addition of appropriate amounts of zirconium to current steel could effectively improve its cavitation erosion-corrosion resistance, mainly attributed to the improved corrosion resistance, impact toughness and work-hardening capacity. However, excessive addition of zirconium caused the precipitation of large-sized zirconium compounds. The interface between the compounds and the matrix could be the origin of damage.

In this study, a composite steel plate for marine construction was fabricated using 316L stainless steel and A6 carbon steel through hot rolling. Neutral salt spray tests and electrochemical experiments were performed to analyse the corrosion behaviours of the cladding material, the carbon steel substrate, and the interface between stainless steel and carbon steel in a marine atmosphere and seawater. The results showed that an evident elemental overlap region was observed at the composite interface of the composite steel plate. After long salt spray test, the A6 carbon steel part showed significant accelerated corrosion along the interface, resulting in the interface specimens corroding at a faster rate than the carbon steel substrate. However, the composite interface showed better corrosion resistance than the carbon steel substrate in the electrochemical tests. A corrosion resistant layer with a width of 15 mm was found on the stainless-steel side of the composite interface. (c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

In this paper, the effect of in-situ (Ti&W)C multiphase particles on the microstructure and the three-body abrasive wear behavior of high chromium cast iron was investigated. The results reveal that the different W/Ti ratios in the preforms can lead to significant differences in the microstructure and properties of the composites. The best microstructure and wear resistance of the composite (M3) is achieved when the W/Ti ratio is 4/6. Under the same wear conditions, the wear resistance of the M3 composite is more than twice as high as that of the matrix material. Furthermore, the presence of (Ti&W)C multiphase particles in the microstructure improves the hardness of high chromium cast iron, promoting its transition from cutting, fatigue, and the M7C3 fracture-exfoliation wear mechanism in the abrasive wear to micro-cutting and fatigue wear.

采用原位法制备出(W&Ti)C复相颗粒增强高铬铸铁基复合材料,研究了增强颗粒对材料显微组织和磨损行为的影响规律.结果表明:与高铬铸铁相比,复合材料显微组织中WC和TiC颗粒的存在使其洛氏硬度(HRC)从55提高到70.在磨损过程中,高铬铸铁靠近磨损表面的M7C3型碳化物在磨料的反复作用下会产生裂纹并向基体内部扩展.破碎的碳化物更容易脱落,无法抵抗磨料对材料表面的犁削作用,从而加速材料的磨损.复合材料中相对较软的基体相在磨损时会逐渐被去除,磨损表面会暴露出大量WC和TiC颗粒.表面凸起的增强颗粒会承受来自磨料的主要破坏作用,进而有效地保护周边的基体材料.对比发现,在相同磨损条件下复合材料的磨损性能提高了 1倍以上.

采用金相观察、扫描电镜及透射电子显微镜分析、硬度测试、室温冲击测试和拉伸测试等研究了碳元素的添加对中铬合金钢组织及力学性能的影响.结果表明,碳含量会明显影响中铬合金钢的基体组织及第二相碳化物等的析出.随着碳含量的增加,经热处理后的合金钢组织中的马氏体逐渐由板条状转变为片状,碳化物不断增加,在中铬合金钢基体中均匀分布,对晶粒变细起到一定的促进作用,残余奥氏体受到铬系碳化物变化的影响,其占比先增加后减少.中铬合金钢试样的硬度随着碳含量的增加整体呈现出先急剧增大后基本稳定,最后又明显增加的变化规律.高碳含量下合金钢的室温冲击吸收功明显降低.研究结果表明通过改变碳元素含量可以实现中铬合金钢力学性能的宽幅调控.

The alloying of high-manganese steel with aluminum produces wear-resistant casting components with greater yield strength and significantly reduced density, which facilitates considerable energy-savings and service life extension in cement, mining, and construction operations. However, the strengthening mechanism of Al alloying responsible for the increasing yield strength, and how the fracture mechanism influences the work hardening behavior of these castings require further clarification. The present work addresses these issues by evaluating the work hardening behavior and fracture mechanisms of casting Fe-18Mn-1.3C-2Cr steels with Al alloying con-centrations of 0, 4, 7, and 11 wt%. The results reveal that work hardening is facilitated by twinning-dislocation cell intersection in the absence of Al, by deformation band-planar slipping dislocation intersections et al. con-centrations of 4 and 7 wt%, and by the precipitation of kappa carbides at an Al concentration of 11 wt%. Furthermore, the tensile fracture mode increasingly varied from ductile fracture at 0 Al wt.% to brittle rupture at 11 Al wt.%, which was also accompanied by large voids and cleavages.

随着"碳达峰"、"碳中和"的目标提出,汽车、航空、航天、高铁等诸多工业领域对钢铁结构件的安全和可靠性要求越发严苛.因此,钢铁结构材料需要满足高强度、高塑性以及更优异的综合力学性能,例如耐疲劳、耐冲击以及加工硬化能力等方面来进行更深入的研究.进入21世纪,孪生诱发塑性钢,即TWIP钢的研究逐渐展开.该材料具有单相奥氏体结构,其在变形过程中会形成大量的形变孪晶,对晶粒进行分割,表现出动态的Hall-Petch效应,可极大提高金属材料的加工硬化能力,并具有较高的均匀伸长率和抗拉强度,因而具有潜在的工业应用价值.根据TWIP钢的力学性能特点,系统地介绍了TWIP钢的加工硬化率、应变速率敏感性、变形温度敏感性、疲劳裂纹扩展以及抗冲击性能的研究进展,以期为高强钢开发提供新的思路和理论支持.

Aluminum-containing high Manganese（Mn） steels are widely used as key parts for wear-resistant devices due to their excellent wear resistance, work hardening ability, and low-density characteristics, in order to achieve the lightweight design and industrial energy-saving and consumption reduction. In the present study, a lightweight high Mn steel with a composition of Fe-18Mn-4Al-1. 2C-2Cr（wt. %） is designed by adding the mass fraction of 4% aluminum, and the effect of aging heat treatment on the microstructure, tensile and impact properties of 1 100 ℃ solid soluted steel was studied by optical microscope（OM）, X-ray diffractometer（XRD）, scanning electron microscope（SEM）, hardness test, pendulum impact tests and tensile tests. The results show that the tensile-to-yield stress ratio, hardness and impact energy of the material, after aging between 300 to 500 ℃, increases gradually with the aging temperature. At the same time, the metallographic results show that a large number of carbides were precipitated at the grain boundaries after aging heat treatment at 600 ℃, forming grain boundary brittleness and leading to the deterioration of the mechanical properties of the lightweight high Mn steel, thus elongation and strength of the light-weight wear-resistant steel decreased sharply after aging at 600 ℃.

The present study designed two kinds of Fe-18Mn-1.3C-2Cr-(4, 11)Al (wt.%) low-density steels. Tensile and impact tests were carried out to evaluate the work hardening and impact toughness properties via aluminum (Al) alloying control. Meanwhile, microstructure evolution and fracture morphology were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), a scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), a transmission electron microscope (TEM), and a stereo-optical microscope (OM). It is found that the Al addition obviously promotes the dislocation planar slipping, resulting in cleavage and brittle impact fracture in 11wt.% Al steel. Besides, the microband-induced plasticity (MBIP) mechanism is found in 4wt.% Al containing steel, introducing considerable work hardening capacity and impact toughness of 156.8±17.4 J. The present study provides a direct illustration of the relationship between work hardening and impact toughness behaviors of these two low-density steels for potential application as impact-resistant components.