Austempered ductile iron is known for its excellent mechanical properties resulting from special phase composition and austempering heat treatment. Typical microstructure consists of ferrite plates of micrometre size submerged in untransformed austenite matrix. It has been recently shown that by use of appropriate chemical composition of cast iron and well targeted heat treatment parameters, it is possible to reduce ferrite plates width to submicron or even nanometric size. This creates the potential to achieve even higher mechanical properties of austempered ductile iron. The paper describes the influence of applied heat treatment parameters on microstructure of selected austempered ductile iron grades. Conditions necessary to reduce size of phases to a nanometric scale by heat treatment in austempered ductile iron are discussed.

The aim of the study was to produce and characterize a nanobainitic microstructure in surface layers of carburized 38CrAlMo6-10 structural steel. Steel contained 1.% Al and 0.3% Si -elements hindering the cementite precipitation, which was considered to be adequate for obtaining a carbide free bainite. Steel samples were subjected to two different vacuum carburizing processes in order to obtain two different contents of carbon in surface layer. To produce a nanobainitic microstructure a heat treatment consisting of austempering at temperature slightly higher than the martensite start temperature (Ms) of the layer was applied after each carburization process. It was found, that the obtained microstructure of carburized layer depends strongly on carbon content. In steel with surface layer containing lower carbon content a nanobainitic microstructure with carbon-enriched residual austenite was formed. In case of surface layer containing higher carbon content the ultra-fine grained lower bainite was obtained.Keywords: carburization, austempering, low-temperature bainite, nanobainiteCelem pracy było wytworzenie w nawęglonej warstwie wierzchniej stali 38CrAlMo6-10 mikrostruktury nanobainitu. Stal ta zawiera dodatek 1,31% Al+Si -pierwiastków hamujących wydzielanie węglików, który został uznany za wystarczający by umożliwić powstanie nanobainitu. Próbki poddano dwóm procesom nawęglania do dwóch różnych zawartości węgla w warstwie wierzchniej. Zastosowana obróbka cieplna nanobainityzacji obejmowała hartowanie izotermiczne w temperaturach nieco wyższych niż Ms warstwy. Uzyskane wyniki pozwalają stwierdzić, że mikrostruktura warstwy wierzchniej po bainityzacji zależy silnie od zawartości węgla. W przypadku jednej warstwy uzyskano nanometrycznej wielkości listwy bainitu z filmem wzbogaconego w węgiel austenitu resztkowego, w drugiej mikrostrukturę ultra drobnoziarnistego bainitu dolnego.

This paper presents the influence of a nanobainitising (N-B) and bainitising, quenching and partitioning (B-Q&P) heat treatments on corrosion resistance and wear resistance in corrosive environment on carburised 42NiSiMo8-3-7-F steel, as compared to steel after quenching and tempering (Q&T). Nanobainitizng leads to produce nanobainitic microstructure and the B-Q&P treatment resulted in ultra-fine, multiphase microstructure composed of nanobainite, martensite and temperature-stable austenite. It was revealed that steel after novel heat treatments, despite multiphase microstructure, large number of grain boundaries and high residual stress showed similar corrosion resistance in 3.5% NaCl solution and better wear resistance in dry sliding conditions as well as in corrosive environment. In addition, volume loss due to wear in corrosive environment was almost twice as low as in dry sliding test. Obtained results show that novel heat treatments of steel may be successfully applied instead of traditional Q&T without the risk of lowering corrosion resistance.