Combinatorial development and high throughput materials characterisation of steels

Abstract

A series of small iron specimens with minor additions of C, Si and Mn were manufactured via induction melting and characterised using a high-throughput methodology. The aim was to analyse the high-throughput approach itself, not the effects of minor additions to steel.Despite their small size the trends in measured standard mechanical properties were consistent with published data and target alloy compositions were achieved to a sufficient degree of accuracy. This is most encouraging as the experimental approaches described here delivered results in a very short time frame, with time per composition estimated to be less than 2 hours per sample. Such an approach would appear to be an excellent precursor to more traditional, expensive and time-consuming alloy development methods used by industry. Limitations of the methodology are described and key bottlenecks identified.However, the use of small specimens to quantify trends in properties of steels and identify possible new alloys is potentially a valuable addition to the development of new steels.

Rapid alloy prototyping for strip steel development: DP800 steel case study

“…A Consarc 10 kg VIM was used to produce 4.5 kg of DP800 made from ferroalloys (listed in Table 3). A vacuum of approximately ×10 −5 mbar was achieved before back filling with N6 argon to a pressure of 0.2 mbar. Initially, just the pure iron, Cr, and Fe–Si were placed in the melt crucible.…”

“…These materials obtain the majority of their properties from the chemical composition rather than process (thermal plus mechanical) history and therefore don't need to consider the implications of lab-based trials scaling up to full production. Work by the University of Swansea has shown that taking this rapid production approach to steel alloy development can yield extremely fast results and show clear trends in properties that would be expected [5]. This rapid alloy assessment approach (both computationally and experimentally) can be seen in the development of creep-resistant steels [6] and microalloyed steels [7].…”