Abstract
An aging method assisted by electric current was applied to a Fe-18Mn-9Al-1C (wt.%) low-density steel. It improves the microstructure and therefore significantly increases both the yield strength and ductility of the steel. This current-assisted aging method can increase the yield strength by 178 MPa and elongation by 1.16 times in only 0.5 min at 450 °C. However, the yield strength is increased only 90 MPa by the traditional aging method (heat conduction) at 450 °C for 180 min, and the elongation is even decreased from 42.0% to 31.6%. The obvious improvement in yield strength by the current-assisted aging for a short time is resulted from the fact that the current-assisted aging promotes a rapid precipitation of nano-scale κ-carbides in γ-austenite by reducing the thermodynamic barrier and accelerating the atomic diffusion. This work demonstrates that this current-assisted aging method is significantly time saving and cost-effective for low-density steels, with potential for various industrial applications.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the National MCF Energy R&D Program of China (No. 2018YFE0306102), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51974184), and the Joint Fund of Iron and Steel Research (No. U1660103).
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Chang-jiang Song Ph.D., Professor. His research interests mainly focus on solidification theory and microstructure control, and fabrication of super performance metastable engineering materials through solidification process control. He has supervised over 20 projects and published more than 100 papers in international journals. E-mail: riversong@shu.edu.cn; riversxiao@163.com
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Wang, Zg., Shen, Cl., Zhang, Jl. et al. An accelerated aging assisted by electric current in a Fe-Mn-Al-C low-density steel. China Foundry 19, 395–402 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41230-022-2033-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41230-022-2033-y