Expanded Lever Rule for Phase Volume Fraction Calculation of High-Strength Low-Alloy Steel in Thermal Simulation

The principle of the lever rule on the dilatation curve and its application to the corresponding differential dilatation curve were introduced in a nonoverlapped two-phase continuous cooling process. The lever rule was further expanded in the case of an overlapped two-phase process. The application of the expanded lever rule was based on the approximate symmetry treatment on the differential dilatation curve, which shows reasonably both on the theoretical calculation and in the experimental results. High-strength low-alloy steels were thermal simulated with Gleeble 3500. The transformed phase volume fractions in different cooling processes were calculated by the expanded lever rule and metallography analysis. The results showed the expanded lever rule could calculate reliable phase volume fractions as metallography analysis. (C) The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society and ASM International 2016