Tailoring Microstructures of Metals

doi:10.11900/0412.1961.2022.00555

Acta Metall Sin

2023, Vol. 59

Issue (4): 447-456 DOI: 10.11900/0412.1961.2022.00555

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Tailoring Microstructures of Metals

LI Dianzhong(

), WANG Pei

Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China

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LI Dianzhong, WANG Pei. Tailoring Microstructures of Metals. Acta Metall Sin, 2023, 59(4): 447-456.

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Abstract

In the light of the property requirements to design microstructures will become an important develop direction of metal materials. Here, a new concept of microstructure tailoring is proposed. The main features of microstructure tailoring include designing mesoscale microstructure, establishing quantitative relation between microstructures and properties, accurately inverse-designing and fabricating microstructures to satisfy the property requirements. It means screening, multi-scale calculation, and quantification of the essential microstructural factors should be performed first. Second, the microstructures are purposefully fabricated after adjusting the thermodynamics and kinetics of phase transformation. Third, the microstructures are assessed and tailored through iterative optimization. Microstructure tailoring must be preceded by purification and homogenization of metals. Only when the purity problem of materials is solved first, the influence of inclusions and impurity elements can be eliminated. Only by eliminating the macro-segregation can the material achieve homogeneity. And then the intrinsic properties of the material be fully reflected. As an example of microstructure tailoring, this study investigates the expected fatigue-life requirements of M50 (G80Cr4Mo4V) steels used for bearings in aircraft engines. By controlling the macro-segregation and purification, it is found that the fatigue-life of M50 steel mainly depends on primary carbides. And then the size, type, and morphology of the primary carbides are quantitatively tailored to fulfill the fatigue-life requirement. With technological developments in the metallurgy industry, microstructure tailoring will become a mainstay of the development of metals. And, applying data science and modeling along with microstructure tailoring technology, the alloy design will be gradually optimized in the future. The expensive metal addition will be reduced gradually, so as to save resources and develop green materials.

Key words: metal tailoring microstructure microstructure service performance evaluation

Received: 01 November 2022

ZTFLH:

TG113.1

Fund: National Natural Science Foundation of China(52031013)

Corresponding Authors: LI Dianzhong, professor, Tel: (024)83970106, E-mail: dzli@imr.ac.cn

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https://www.ams.org.cn/EN/10.11900/0412.1961.2022.00555 OR https://www.ams.org.cn/EN/Y2023/V59/I4/447

Fig.1 Schematical technology route of tailoring microstructures of metals

Fig.2 Inclusions in the M50 steel manufactured by vacuum induction melting (VIM) + vacuum arc remelting (VAR) and low-oxygen RE treatment

Fig.3 Typical morphology of primary carbides in M50 steel

Fig.4 Morphology and EDS element mappings of crack initiation region in tension-compression fatigue specimens of M50 steel (a-c) (FGA—fine grain area)

Fig.5 SEM image of the tailored microstructure of M50 steel (The size of primary carbide ≤ 20 μm)

Fig.6 Weibull distribution curves of ± 900 MPa tension-compression fatigue life of M50 steel prepared by different processes (S1 and S2 curves are the fatigue life of M50 steel manufactured by microstructure tailoring technology and normal technology, respectively)

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