Coarsening behavior of nanometer-sized carbides in hot-rolled high strength sheet steel

This study deals with a relationship between strength and coiling temperature of high strength hot-rolled sheet steels consisting of ferrite and nanometer-sized carbides in order to evaluate the stability of the strength against the variation of the coiling temperature. Ti-Mo-bearing and Ti-bearing steels were prepared to form (Ti,Mo)C and TiC in ferrite matrix, respectively. Ti-Mo-bearing steel exhibited the high strength even under the high temperature coiling while the strength of Ti-bearing steel decreased significantly. Ti-bearing steel just after transforming at 923K had the same hardness as that at 898K. In addition, hardness of Ti-bearing steel coiled at 898K decreased significantly by holding at 923K for 8.64ks while Ti-Mo-bearing steel did not represent a large change in hardness. These results confirm that (Ti,Mo)C is not coarsened easily by Ostwald ripening at the high coiling temperature unlike TiC. Consequently the retardation of Ostwald ripening of (Ti,Mo)C is attributed to the small amount of titanium in solution in Ti-Mo-bearing steel.