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Cu precipitation on dislocation and interface in quench-aged steel

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Abstract

The Cu precipitation in a quench-aged high-strength low-alloy steel is studied at the atomic scale by atom probe tomography and highresolution transmission electron microscopy. The results indicate that the Cu precipitates greatly correlate with carbides in the aspect of distributional character, i.e., the two phases are prone to coprecipitate on the dislocations and/or interfaces (low angle boundaries of the martensite laths). The crystallographic defects have a significant effect on the sizes, morphology and composition of Cu precipitates with Ni and Mn segregation shell.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for financial support of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50931003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Microstructures and Institute of Materials, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200072, P.R. China

    Qingdong Liu & Shijin Zhao

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  1. Qingdong Liu
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Correspondence to Qingdong Liu.

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Liu, Q., Zhao, S. Cu precipitation on dislocation and interface in quench-aged steel. MRS Communications 2, 127–132 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2012.21

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