In this study, three kinds of bainitic steels are fabricated by controlling the contents of vanadium and boron. High vanadium steel has a lot of carbides and nitrides, and so, during the cooling process, acicular ferrite is well formed. Carbides and nitrides develop fine grains by inhibiting grain growth. As a result, the low temperature Charpy absorbed energy of high vanadium steel is higher than that of low vanadium steel. In boron added steel, boron segregates at the prior austenite grain boundary, so that acicular ferrite formation occurs well during the cooling process. However, the granular bainite packet size of the boron added steel is larger than that of high vanadium steel because boron cannot effectively suppress grain growth. Therefore, the low temperature Charpy absorbed energy of the boron added steel is lower than that of the low vanadium steel. HAZ (heat affected zone) microstructure formation affects not only vanadium and boron but also the prior austenite grain size. In the HAZ specimen having large prior austenite grain size, acicular ferrite is formed inside the austenite, and granular bainite, bainitic ferrite, and martensite are also formed in a complex, resulting in a mixed acicular ferrite region with a high volume fraction. On the other hand, in the HAZ specimen having small prior austenite grain size, the volume fraction of the mixed acicular ferrite region is low because granular bainite and bainitic ferrite are coarse due to the large number of prior austenite grain boundaries.

In this study, three kinds of bainitic steel plates are manufactured by varying the chemical compositions and their microstructures are analyzed. Tensile and Charpy impact tests are performed at room and low temperature to investigate the correlation between microstructure and mechanical properties. In addition, heat affected zone (HAZ) specimens are fabricated by a simulation of welding processes, and the HAZ microstructure is analyzed. The base steel that has the lowest carbon equivalent has the highest volume fraction of acicular ferrite and the lowest volume fraction of secondary phases, so the strength is the lowest and the elongation is the highest. The Mo steel has a higher volume fraction of granular bainite and more secondary phases than the base steel, so the strength is high and the elongation is low. The CrNi steel has the highest volume fraction of the secondary phases, so the strength is the highest and elongation is the lowest. The tensile properties of the steels, namely, strength and elongation, have a linear correlation with the volume fraction of secondary phases. The Mo steel has the lowest Charpy impact energy at -80 oC because of coarse granular bainite. In the Base-HAZ and Mo-HAZ specimens, the hardness increases as the volume fraction of martensite-austenite constituents increases. In the CrNi-HAZ specimen, however, hardness increases as the volume fraction of martensite and bainitic ferrite increases.