The influence of specimen geometry and notch on the hydrogen embrittlement of an SA372 steel for pressure vessels was investigated in this study. A slow strain-rate tensile (SSRT) test after the electrochemical hydrogen charging method was conducted on four types of tensile specimens with different directions, shapes (plate, round), and notches. The plate-type specimen showed a significant decrease in hydrogen embrittlement resistance owing to its large surface-to-volume ratio, compared to the round-type specimen. It is well established that most of the hydrogen distributes over the specimen surface when it is electrochemically charged. For the round-type specimens, the notched specimen showed increased hydrogen susceptibility compared with the unnotched one. A notch causes stress concentration and thus generates lots of dislocations in the locally deformed regions during the SSRT test. The solute hydrogen weakens the interactions between these dislocations by promoting the shielding effect of stress fields, which is called hydrogen-enhanced localized plasticity mechanisms. These results provide crucial insights into the relationship between specimen geometry and hydrogen embrittlement resistance.

This study aims to examine the correlation between microstructures and the mechanical properties of two highstrength API X70 linepipe steels with different specimen directions and Moaddition. The microstructure of the Mo-added steel has an irregularly shaped AF, GB matrix with pearlite because of the relatively large deformation in the non-recrystallization temperature region, while that of the Mo-free steel shows a PF matrix with bainitic microstructure. In the Mo-added steel, the M/A (martensite-austenite) in granular bainite (GB) and pearlite act as crack initiation sites with decreased upper shelf energy and an increased ductile to brittle transition temperature (DBTT). Regardless of Mo addition, all of the steels demonstrate higher strength and lower elongation in the T direction than in the L direction because of the short dislocation glide path and ease of pile-up at grain boundaries. In addition, the impact test specimens with T-L direction had a lower impact absorbed energy and higher DBTT than those with the L-T direction because the former exhibit shorter unit crack path compared to the latter.

Machine learning-based data analysis approaches have been employed to overcome the limitations in accurately analyzing data and to predict the results of the design of Nb-based superalloys. In this study, a database containing the composition of the alloying elements and their room-temperature tensile strengths was prepared based on a previous study. After computing the correlation between the tensile strength at room temperature and the composition, a material science analysis was conducted on the elements with high correlation coefficients. These alloying elements were found to have a significant effect on the variation in the tensile strength of Nb-based alloys at room temperature. Through this process, a model was derived to predict the properties using four machine learning algorithms. The Bayesian ridge regression algorithm proved to be the optimal model when Y, Sc, W, Cr, Mo, Sn, and Ti were used as input features. This study demonstrates the successful application of machine learning techniques to effectively analyze data and predict outcomes, thereby providing valuable insights into the design of Nb-based superalloys.

The effect of Cr and Mo contents on the hydrogen embrittlement of tempered martensitic steels was investigated in this study. After the steels with different Cr and Mo contents were austenitized at 820 °C for 90 min, they were tempered at 630 °C for 120 min. The steels were composed of fully tempered martensite with a lath-type microstructure, but the characteristics of the carbides were dependent on the Cr and Mo contents. As the Cr and Mo contents increased, the volume fraction of film-like cementite and prior austenite grain size decreased. After hydrogen was introduced into tensile specimens by electrochemical charging, a slow strain-rate test (SSRT) was conducted to investigate hydrogen embrittlement behavior. The SSRT results revealed that the steel with lower Cr or lower Mo content showed relatively poor hydrogen embrittlement resistance. The hydrogen embrittlement resistance of the tempered martensitic steels increased with increasing Mo content, because the reduction in the film-like cementite and prior austenite grain size plays an important role in improving hydrogen embrittlement resistance. The results indicate that controlling the Cr and Mo contents is essential to achieving a tempered martensitic steel with a combination of high strength and excellent hydrogen embrittlement resistance.

The impact properties of two austenitic Fe-23Mn-0.4C steels with different Al contents for cryogenic applications are investigated in this study. The 4Al steel consists mostly of austenite single-phase microstructure, while the 5Al steel exhibits a two-phase microstructure of austenite and delta-ferrite with coarse and elongated grains. Charpy impact test results reveal that the 5Al steel with duplex phases of austenite and delta-ferrite exhibits a ductile-to-brittle transition behavior, while the 4Al steel with only single-phase austenite has higher absorbed energy over 100 J at -196 oC. The SEM fractographs of Charpy impact specimens show that the 4Al steel has a ductile dimple fracture regardless of test temperature, whereas the 5Al steel fractured at -100 oC and -196 oC exhibits a mixed fracture mode of both ductile and brittle fractures. Additionally, quasi-cleavage fracture caused by crack propagation of delta-ferrite phase is found in some regions of the brittle fracture surface of the 5Al steel. Based on these results, the delta-ferrite phase hardly has a significant effect on absorbed energy at room-temperature, but it significantly deteriorates low-temperature toughness by acting as the main site of the propagation of brittle cracks at cryogenic-temperatures.

This study deals with the yielding behavior and strain aging properties of three bake hardening steels with dualphase microstructure, fabricated by varying the annealing temperature. Bake hardening and aging tests are performed to examine the correlation of martensite volume fraction with yielding behavior and strain aging properties of the bake hardening steels with dual-phase microstructure. The volume fraction of martensite increases with increasing annealing temperature. Roomtemperature tensile test results show that the yielding behavior changes from discontinuous-type to continuous-type with increasing volume fraction of martensite due to higher mobile dislocation density. According to the bake hardening and aging tests, the specimen with the highest fraction of martensite exhibited high bake hardening with low aging index because solute carbon atoms in ferrite and martensite effectively diffuse to dislocations during the bake hardening test, while in the aging test they diffuse at only ferrite due to lower aging temperature.

This study deals with the effects of austempering time on the microstructure and mechanical properties of ultrahigh strength nanostructured bainitic steels with high carbon and silicon contents. The steels are composed of bainite, martensite and retained austenite by austempering and quenching. As the duration of austempering increases, the thickness of bainitic ferrite increases, but the thickness of retained austenite decreases. Some retained austenites with lower stability are more easily transformed to martensite during tensile testing, which has a detrimental effect on the elongation due to the brittleness of transformed martensite. With increasing austempering time, the hardness decreased and then remained stable because the transformation to nanostructured bainite compensates for the decrease in the volume fraction of martensite. Charpy impact test results indicated that increasing austempering time improved the impact toughness because the formation of brittle martensite was prevented by the decreased fraction and increased stability of retained austenite.

The effect of intercritical annealing temperature on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Fe-9Mn-0.2C- 3Al-0.5Si medium manganese steels containing Cu and Ni is investigated in this study. Six kinds of medium manganese steels are fabricated by varying the chemical composition and intercritical annealing temperature. Hardness and tensile tests are performed to examine the correlation of microstructure and mechanical properties for the intercritical annealed medium manganese steels containing Cu and Ni. The microstructures of all the steels are composed mostly of lath ferrite, reverted austenite and cementite, regardless of annealing temperature. The room-temperature tensile test results show that the yield and tensile strengths decrease with increasing intercritical annealing temperature due to higher volume fraction and larger thickness of reverted austenite. On the other hand, total and uniform elongations, and strain hardening exponent increase due to higher dislocation density because transformation-induced plasticity is promoted with increasing annealing temperature by reduction in reverted austenite stability.

Effect of heat treatment on microstructure and mechanical properties of an Fe-6.5Mn-0.08C medium-manganese steel is investigated in this study. Three kinds of medium-manganese steel specimens are fabricated by varying heat treatments of intermediate quenching (IQ), step quenching (SQ), and intercritical annealing (IA). Hardness and tensile tests are performed to examine the correlation of microstructure and mechanical properties for the Fe-6.5Mn-0.08C medium-manganese steel specimens. The IQ and SQ specimens have microstructures of martensite matrix with ferrite, whereas IA specimen exhibits microstructure of acicular ferrite matrix with martensite. The tensile test results show that the SQ specimen with martensite matrix has the highest yield strength and the lowest elongation. On the other hand, the SQ specimen has the highest hardness due to the relatively lower reduction of carbon content in martensite during intercritical annealing. According to the fractography of tensile tested specimens, the SQ specimen exhibits a dimple and quasi-cleavage fracture appearance while the IQ and IA specimens have fully ductile fracture appearance with fine-sized dimples caused by microvoid coalescence at ferrite and martensite interface.

This study deals with the microstructure and tensile properties of 600 MPa-grade seismic reinforced steel bars fabricated by a pilot plant. The steel bar specimens are composed of a fully ferrite-pearlite structure because they were air-cooled after hot-rolling. The volume fraction and interlamellar spacing of the pearlite and the ferrite grain size decrease from the center region to the surface region because the surface region is more rapidly cooled than the center region. The A steel bar specimenwith a relatively high carbon content generally has a higher pearlite volume fraction and interlamellar spacing of pearlite and a finer ferrite grain size because increasing the carbon content promotes the formation of pearlite. As a result, the A steel bar specimen has a higher hardness than the B steel bar in all the regions. The hardness shows a tendency to decrease from the center region to the surface region due to the decreased pearlite volume fraction. On the other hand, the tensile-to-yield strength ratio and the tensile strength of the A steel bar specimen are higher than those of the B steel bar with a relatively low carbon content because a higher pearlite volume fraction enhances work hardening. In addition, the B steel bar specimen has higher uniform and total elongations because a lower pearlite volume fraction facilitates plastic deformation caused by dislocation slip.

The effect of C, Mn, and Al additions on the tensile and Charpy impact properties of austenitic high-manganese steels for cryogenic applications is investigated in terms of the deformation mechanism dependent on stacking fault energy and austenite stability. The addition of the alloying elements usually increases the stacking fault energy, which is calculated using a modified thermodynamic model. Although the yield strength of austenitic high-manganese steels is increased by the addition of the alloying elements, the tensile strength is significantly affected by the deformation mechanism associated with stacking fault energy because of grain size refinement caused by deformation twinning and mobile dislocations generated during deformation-induced martensite transformation. None of the austenitic high-manganese steels exhibit clear ductile-brittle transition behavior, but their absorbed energy gradually decreases with lowering test temperature, regardless of the alloying elements. However, the combined addition of Mn and Al to the austenitic high-manganese steels suppresses the decrease in absorbed energy with a decreasing temperature by enhancing austenite stability.

This study deals with the effect of microstructure factors on the strain aging properties of API X70 pipeline steels with different microstructure fractions and grain sizes. The grain size and microstructure fraction of the API pipeline steels are analyzed by optical and scanning electron microscopy and electron backscatter diffraction analysis. Tensile tests before and after 1% pre-strain and thermal aging treatment are conducted to simulate pipe forming and coating processes. All the steels are composed mostly of polygonal ferrite, acicular ferrite, granular bainite, and bainitic ferrite. After 1% pre-strain and thermal aging treatment, the tensile test results reveal that yield strength, tensile strength and yield ratio increase, while uniform elongation decreases with an increasing thermal aging temperature. The increment of yield and tensile strengths are affected by the fraction of bainitic ferrite with high dislocation density because the mobility of dislocations is inhibited by interaction between interstitial atoms and dislocations in bainitic ferrite. On the other hand, the variation of yield ratio and uniform elongation is the smallest in the steel with the largest grain size because of the decrease in the grain boundary area for dislocation pile-ups and the presence of many dislocations inside large grains after 1% pre-strain.

This study examines the effect of microstructural factors on the strength and deformability of ferrite-pearlite steels. Six kinds of ferrite-pearlite steel specimens are fabricated with the addition of different amounst of Mn and V and with varying the isothermal transformation temperature. The Mn steel specimen with a highest Mn content has the highest pearlite volume fraction because Mn addition inhibits the formation of ferrite. The V steel specimen with a highest V content has the finest ferrite grain size and lowest pearlite volume fraction because a large amount of ferrite forms in fine austenite grain boundaries that are generated by the pinning effect of many VC precipitates. On the other hand, the room-temperature tensile test results show that the V steel specimen has a longer yield point elongation than other specimens due to the highest ferrite volume fraction. The V specimen has the highest yield strength because of a larger amount of VC precipitates and grain refinement strengthening, while the Mn specimen has the highest tensile strength because the highest pearlite volume fraction largely enhances work hardening. Furthermore, the tensile strength increases with a higher transformation temperature because increasing the precipitate fraction with a higher transformation temperature improves work hardening. The results reveal that an increasing transformation temperature decreases the yield ratio. Meanwhile, the yield ratio decreases with an increasing ferrite grain size because ferrite grain size refinement largely increases the yield strength. However, the uniform elongation shows no significant changes of the microstructural factors.

This study investigates the effects of isothermal holding temperature and time on the microstructure, hardness and Charpy impact properties of medium-carbon bainitic steel specimens. Medium-carbon steel specimens with different bainitic microstructures are fabricated by varying the isothermal conditions and their microstructures are characterized using OM, SEM and EBSD analysis. Hardness and Charpy impact tests are also performed to examine the correlation of microstructure and mechanical properties. The microstructural analysis results reveal that granular bainite, bainitic ferrite, lath martensite and retained austenite form differently in the specimens. The volume fraction of granular bainite and bainitic ferrite increases as the isothermal holding temperature increases, which decreases the hardness of specimens isothermally heat-treated at 300 ℃ or higher. The specimens isothermally heat-treated at 250 ℃ exhibit the highest hardness due to the formation of lath martensite, irrespective of isothermal holding time. The Charpy impact test results indicate that increasing isothermal holding time improves the impact toughness because of the increase in volume fraction of granular bainite and bainitic ferrite, which have a relatively soft microstructure compared to lath martensite for specimens isothermally heat-treated at 250 ℃ and 300 ℃.

This paper presents a study of the microstructure and mechanical properties of commercial high-hardness armor (HHA) steels tempered at different temperatures. Although the as-received specimens of all the steels exhibit a tempered martensite structure with lath type morphology, the A steel, which has the smallest carbon content, had the lowest hardness due to reduced solid solution hardening and larger lath thickness, irrespective of tempering conditions. As the tempering temperature increases, the hardness of the steels steadily decreases because dislocation density decreases and the lath thickness of martensite increases due to recovery and over-aging effects. When the variations in hardness plotted as a function of tempering temperature are compared with the hardness of the as-received specimens, it seems that the B steel, which has the highest yield and tensile strengths, is fabricated by quenching, while the other steels are fabricated by quenching and tempering. On the other hand, the impact properties of the steels are affected by specimen orientation and test temperature as well as microstructure. Based on these results, the effect of tempering on the microstructure and mechanical properties of commercial high-hardness armor steels is discussed.

This study deals with the microstructure and tensile properties of 700 MPa-grade high-strength and seismic reinforced steel bars. The high-strength reinforced steel bars (600 D13, 600 D16 and 700 D13 specimens) are fabricated by a TempCore process, while the seismic reinforced steel bar (600S D16 specimen) is fabricated by air cooling after hot rolling. For specimens fabricated by the TempCore process, the 600 D13 and 600 D16 specimens have a microstructure of tempered martensite in the surface region and ferrite-pearlite in the center region, while the 700 D13 specimen has a microstructure of tempered martensite in the surface region and bainite in the center region. Therefore, their hardness is the highest in the surface region and shows a tendency to decrease from the surface region to the center region because tempered martensite has a higher hardness than ferrite-pearlite or bainite. However, the hardness of the 600S D16 specimen, which is composed of fully ferritepearlite, increases from the surface region to the center region because the pearlite volume fraction increases from the surface region to the center region. On the other hand, the tensile test results indicate that only the 700 D13 specimen with a higher carbon content exhibits continuous yielding behavior due to the formation of bainite in the center region. The 600S D16 specimen has the highest tensile-to-yield ratio because the presence of ferrite-pearlite and precipitates caused by vanadium addition largely enhances work hardening.

In the present study the microstructure of low-carbon steels fabricated by controlled rolling and accelerated cooling processes was characterized and identified based on various microstructure analysis methods including optical and scanning electron microscopy, and electron backscatter diffraction(EBSD). Although low-carbon steels are usually composed of α-ferrite and cementite(Fe3C) phases, they can have complex microstructures consisting of ferrites with different size, morphology, and dislocation density, and secondary phases dependent on rolling and accelerated cooling conditions. The microstructure of lowcarbon steels investigated in this study was basically classified into polygonal ferrite, acicular ferrite, granular bainite, and bainitic ferrite based on the inverse pole figure, image quality, grain boundary, kernel average misorientation(KAM), and grain orientation spread(GOS) maps, obtained from EBSD analysis. From these results, it can be said that the EBSD analysis provides a valuable tool to identify and quantify the complex microstructure of low-carbon steels fabricated by controlled rolling and accelerated cooling processes.

The effect of strain aging on the tensile properties of API X70 linepipe steel was investigated in this study. The API X70 linepipe steel was fabricated by controlled rolling and accelerated cooling processes, and the microstructure was analyzed using optical and scanning electron microscopes and electron backscatter diffraction. Strain aging tests consisting of 1% pre-strain and thermal aging at 200 oC and 250 oC were conducted to simulate U-forming, O-forming, Expansion(UOE) pipe forming and anti-corrosion coating processes. The API X70 linepipe steel was composed of polygonal ferrite, acicular ferrite, granular bainite, and bainitic ferrite whose volume fraction was dependent on the chemical composition and process conditions. As the thermal aging temperature increased, the steel specimens showed more clearly discontinuous type yielding behavior in the tensile stress-strain curve due to the formation of a Cottrell atmosphere. After pre-strain and thermal aging, the yield and tensile strengths increased and the yield-to-tensile strength ratio decreased because yielding and aging behaviors significantly affected work hardening. On the other hand, uniform and total elongations decreased after pre-strain and thermal aging since dislocation gliding was restricted by increased dislocation density after a 1% pre-strain.

This present study deals with the microstructure and tensile properties of 600 MPa-grade high strength and seismic resistant reinforcing steels. The high strength reinforcing steel (SD 600) was fabricated by Tempcore processing, while the seismic resistant reinforcing steel (SD 600S) was air-cooled after hot-rolling treatment. The microstructure analysis results showed that the SD 600 steel specimen consisted of a tempered martensite and ferrite-pearlite structure after Tempcore processing, while the SD 600S steel specimen had a fully ferrite-pearlite structure. The room-temperature tensile test results indicate that, because of the enhanced solid solution and precipitation strengthening caused by relatively higher contents of C, Mn, Si and V in the SD 600S steel specimen, this specimen, with fully ferrite-pearlite structure, had yield and tensile strengths higher than those of the SD 600 specimen. On the other hand, the hardness of the SD 600 and SD 600S steel specimens changed in different ways according to location, dependent on the microstructure, ferrite grain size, and volume fraction.