In high-strength rebar, the various microstructures obtained by the Tempcore process and the addition of V have a complex effect on the strength improvement of rebar. This study investigated the mechanism of strengthening of high-strength Tempcore rebars upon the addition of vanadium through artificial neural network (ANN) modelling. Various V contents (0.005, 0.072 and 0.14 wt.%) were investigated, and a large amount of bainite and V(C, N) were precipitated in the core of the Tempcore rebar in the high-V specimens. In addition, as the V content increased, the number of these fine precipitates (10–30 nm) increased. The precipitation strengthening proposed by the Ashby–Orowan model is a major contributing factor to the yield-strength increase (35 MPa) of the Tempcore rebar containing 0.140 wt.% V. The ANN model was developed to predict the yield and tensile strengths of Tempcore rebar after the addition of various amounts of V and self-tempering at various temperatures, and it showed high reproducibility compared to the experimental values (R-square was 93% and the average relative error was 2.6%). ANN modelling revealed that the yield strength of the Tempcore rebar increased more significantly with increasing V content (0.01–0.2 wt.%.) at relatively high self-tempering temperatures (≥530 °C). These results provide guidelines for selecting the optimal V content and process conditions for manufacturing high-strength Tempcore rebars.
The effects of welding speed were investigated on penetration characteristics, defects and mechanical properties including formability test in Nd:YAG laser welded 1000MPa grade DP steels. A shielding gas was not used and bead-on-plate welding was performed with various welding speeds at 3.5㎾ laser power. Defects of surface and inner beads were not observed in all welding speeds. As the welding speed increased, the weld cross-section varied from the trapezoid having wider bottom bead, through X type, finally to V type in partial penetration range of welding speeds. The characteristic of hardness distribution was also investigated. The center of HAZ had maximum hardness, followed by a slight decrease of hardness as approaching to FZ. Significant softening occurred at the HAZ near BM. Regardless of the welding speed, the weld showed approximately the same hardness distribution. In the perpendicular tensile test with respect to the weld direction, all specimens were fractured at the softening zone. In the parallel tensile test to the weld direction, the first crack occurred at weld center and then propagated into the weld. Good formability over 80% was taken for all welding conditions.
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