Formation of bainite in ferrous and nonferrous alloys through sympathetic nucleation and ledgewise growth mechanism

Abstract

The subunits constituting a bainitic sheaf in an Fe-C-Cr-Si alloy were discovered by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to consist of sub-subunits, and sub-subunits were also composed of sub-sub-subunits. Detailed investigation shows that a bainitic relief is composed of many smaller reliefs, which correspond to a different structure of bainite,i.e., subunits, sub-subunits, and sub-sub-subunits. It is determined by STM that the surface relief arising from the formation of bainite in an Fe-C-Cr alloy istent shaped rather than an invariant plane strain (IPS) type of surface relief. Careful observation shows that the relief obtained from a sub-sub-subunit is also tent shaped. It is discovered by STM that an α₁ plate,i.e., bainite formed in Cu-Zn-Al alloys, is composed of subunits. This is also demonstrated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The preceding results indicate that bainitic plates in Cu-Zn-Al alloys and bainitic subunits in steels are not the smallest structural units. Based on the preceding results on the ultrafine structure and the nature of surface relief accompanying bainite, it is proposed that the bainitic structure forms through a sympathetic nucleation and ledgewise growth (SNLG) mechanism. This article shows that the SNLG mechanism can be successfully applied to interpret the complicated structure of bainite.