Effect of Rare Earth Yttrium on the Hot Ductility of Eco-friendly Bi-S Based Free Cutting Steel

Abstract

The hot ductility of eco-friendly Bi-S based free cutting steels micro-alloyed with and without yttrium was studied using a Gleeble-1500 thermal-mechanical simulator over the temperature range 850-1200 °C. The results showed that the addition of rare earth yttrium had a substantial improvement in the hot ductility of Bi-S based free-cutting steel, especially at 1000 °C. The beneficial effect of yttrium on the hot ductility of Bi-S based freecutting steel at the temperature no less than 1000 °C was mainly associated to the refinement of austenite grain size, which could effectively reduce the segregation density of bismuth at the grain boundary, and the lowering of the DRX onset temperature by yttrium addition. At 850-950 °C, the improvement of the hot ductility in these steels by yttrium addition might be attributed to the reduction of the low melting point sulphides at grain boundary and the refinement of the austenite grain size. However, the hot ductility of these steels micro-alloyed with yttrium was still poor at 850-950 °C, which was mainly owning to the presence of pro-eutectoid ferrite films and the absence of dynamic recrystallization as well as the segregation of liquid bismuth films at austenite grain boundaries.