Effect of Non-metallic Inclusions on the Temperature and Strain-Rate-Dependent Strength, Deformation and Toughness Behavior of High-Strength Quenched and Tempered Steel

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter presents results of investigations on the strength, deformation and toughness behavior of quenched and tempered 42CrMo4 steel. Intentional impurification and, afterwards, filtration by functionalized ceramic foam filters were applied in order to process cast steels with different amounts and distributions of non-metallic inclusions. As references, a hot-rolled steel batch and spark-plasma sintered materials were studied. The investigations focused on the loading rate and temperature effects. Both, tensile and fracture mechanics tests, were performed in order to investigate the damaging behavior due to non-metallic inclusions remaining after the melt processing of the steel. A further goal was to predict the fracture toughness of the material based on the combination of microstructural information on the inclusion distribution and the strain rate and temperature-dependent strength and deformation behavior. It was shown that the damaging effect of non-metallic inclusions, in particular agglomerated inclusions properties, is localized which leads to relatively low strain to fracture and fracture toughness, but also to crack path deflection. Furthermore, it could be observed that the small interparticle distances within agglomerated non-metallic inclusions determine the fracture toughness behavior of the materials. By analyzing the acoustic emissions, the onset of crack growth as well as the size of the plastic zone at the crack tip could be estimated.