Severely deformed surface layers have been created by ultrasonic attrition technique on four steel sheets to investigate their influence on fatigue behaviour. A low-carbon (0.05%) ferritic steel and a medium-carbon (0.47%) normalized ferritic-pearlitic steel were selected to study the effect of carbon content on fatigue properties of carbon steels. Two stainless steels, Type 316L and Type 301LN, were also tested to study the influence of stability of the austenitic structure. Microstructural features were characterized by hardness measurements, X-ray diffraction and optical and electron microscopy. Fatigue properties were determined in flexural bending in the range 104 to 107 cycles. Crack nucleation and propagation stages were followed. In the attrition treatment thin severely deformed surface layers were found to form. Highly increased hardness was measured in these layers, especially for stainless steels, where also strain-induced martensite was formed. Drastic improvement in fatigue resistance was observed for all steels due to the surface nanocrystallization treatment.
The strength of coke is of major importance for efficient blast furnace operation. There are only a few studies related to compressive coke hot strength, possibly due to experimental difficulties. In this work, it has been demonstrated that the Gleeble thermomechanical simulator is suitable for evaluating coke hot strength and offers many benefits compared to purpose‐built devices reported in the literature. This finding could open coke hot strength research to a wider number of scientists. The compressive hot strength of coke was evaluated at 1000 and 1600°C by testing 50 samples at both temperatures. The yield strength and ultimate strength of the coke were, respectively, 46 and 20% lower at 1600°C than 1000°C. Stress–strain curves showed that the coke was brittle at 1000°C but partially plastic at 1600°C. The significantly lower coke strength at 1600°C could help explain the smaller coke lump size found near the tuyere level in quenched blast furnaces.
This study investigates the microhardness and microstructure of different steels hardened by a fibre laser. Rolled steel, quenched and tempered steel, annealed alloyed steel and conventionally through hardened steel were tested. Microhardness (HV0?01) was measured in martensite, pearlite, ferrite and cementite structures at different depths below the laser irradiated surface. The microhardness results were compared with the conventional macrohardness (HV5) results. The grain size of rolled ferritic-pearlitic steels had distinct effect on microhardness. The macrohardness of quenched and tempered steel might be markedly influenced by the homogeneity of alloy contents. In high carbon steel, cementite is y150 HV harder than pearlite. Annealed alloyed steels achieved high surface hardness but poor hardened depth. Dispersed granular pearlite did not affect the microhardness of soft annealed steel. The macrohardness of the base material was close to the microhardness of the softer phase structure. The measured microhardness was about 100-250 HV higher than the macrohardness.
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