<p class="AMSmaintext2">A significant amount of scale is produced during casting of ingots and processing of hot-rolled products. In manufacturing steel, during the various rolling operations, the amount of scale produced is approximately 0.1% of the annual production of the rolling mills. The quality of the thin sheet during rolling is affected by the behavior of the iron oxide layers formed on their surfaces. For this reason, acids and oils are used for the descaling of slabs and billets by means of pressurized water. The calamine, contaminated by these various acids and used oils, is rejected and stored involuntarily on important areas and pollutes soil and groundwater. Micrographic observations as well as X-ray diffraction analysis have shown that calamine consists mainly of iron oxides. Hematite and magnetite become the main components for oxidation times greater than 1 hour. Characterization tests have shown that calamine is dense (ρ = 4.8 g/cm³), its particle size is variable depending on the degree of oxidation (from 0.5 to 10 mm). Simultaneous thermal analysis showed that an increase in mass of the calamine sample with a release of heat. Studies are underway for the physico-chemical characterization of the soils of the storage areas.</p>

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The present work is a contribution in investigating the effect of heat treatment on microstructure, hardness and friction wear of A105N steel. Samples of 25x25 mm2 cross-section and 15mm thickness have been prepared from the as-received material and then heat-treated. The samples were austenitized at 1050°C for 60 minutes followed by water quenching, then tempered at 500 and 700°C for 120 minutes. Microstructural changes and their effect on the wear resistance and hardness were investigated according to the applied heat treatments. The main results show that after quenching the structure is mostly composed of quenched martensite, which confers high hardness and friction resistance to the steel. While the tempered structure is composed of tempered martensite and ferrite. As the temperature rises to 700°C, the tempered martensite decreases and is fully transformed to ferrite and cementite. A good wear resistance expressed by a low friction coefficient and a low wear rate is achieved by tempering at 500°C.

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This study deals with the influence of the addition of vanadium and niobium with concentrations of 1.2% and 0.14%, respectively, on the variation of the microstructure, and the tribological behavior of an AISI309 austenitic stainless steel. The studied specimens were structurally characterized by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) X-ray diffraction and and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). These samples were also subjected to a tribological study using the friction wear test. The results show that the addition of vanadium and niobium causes a precipitation of stable carbides (VC, NbC) which in mm causes a decrease of the chromium carbide precipitation rate. Tribological test results have also shown that the addition of these two elements improves the wear resistance of AISI309 austenitic stainless steel by decreasing the coefficient of friction fr om 0.824 to 0.554.

The corrosion behaviour of X80 steel samples rolled and other quench-tempered in 3.5% NaCl have been studied. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, potentiodynamic polarization tests and electrochemical impedance measurements are the techniques used to characterize the samples. The results show that the tempered steel has a low corrosion current density compared to the rolled steel. The impedance measurements show the presence of a single capacitive loop attributed to the load transfer phenomenon.

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The aim of this paper is to estimate the reliability of cracked pipeline steel grade API 5L X70 used for hydrocarbon transportation, by coupling a developed mechanical model, based in one hand on the simulation of cracked specimen, and an experimental result of tensile and charpy test, and in the other hand, based on a reliability model by using a first order reliability method (FORM). These pipes are produced by the Algerian company of manufacture of welded pipes (ALFAPIPE Annaba). The experimental task such as resilience and tensile test were carried out on specimens taken from a pipe in the longitudinal and the transversal directions. The resilience tests are carried out at different temperatures in order to estimate the fracture toughness of the material, basing on a global correlation. Besides, tensile tests are performed to bring out the mechanical characteristics of the material. After, the stress intensity factor is assessed using the analytical model of IRWIN. In the reliability analysis, the limit state function is attributed to the moment when the stress intensity factor estimated by Irwin mechanical model, is equal to the fracture toughness of the steel pipe. The basic random variables within the limit state function are assumed to follow a normal distribution in order to simplify the assessment. Then, the evaluation of the reliability index and the parameters sensitivities of the cracked pipelines steel are assessed.