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Effects of lanthanum on bainite transformation behavior in Mn–Cr–Mo rail steel

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Abstract

La Effects on bainite transformation behavior including transformation kinetics and the nucleation and growth of bainitic plates of Mn–Cr–Mo bainitic rail steel were investigated using dilatometry, laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). Dilatometry analyses show that La postpones the bainite transformation and increases the transformation activation energy by 31 kJ/mol. LSCM results indicate that La stimulates sympathetic nucleation at the beginning of bainite transformation but delays the growth of bainitic plates at the late stage which becomes the dominant factor of transformation, decreasing the transformation rate and prolonging the transformation time simultaneously. Eventually, combined with the refining effects of La and M3C pinning the interfaces between sub-plates, a kind of complicated multi-layer microstructure consisted of less and finer subunits can be achieved at cooling rate of 0.8 °C/s just by air cooling on site.

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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its additional files. Requests for material should be made to the corresponding authors.

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Acknowledgments

The in site observation by LSCM was carried out at Mechanical, Materials & Biomedical of University of Wollongong, Australia. The TEM experiments were carried out at Central for Testing & Analysis of Materials of Tsinghua University. Baotou Iron and Steel Group Co., Ltd is also gratefully acknowledged for providing the raw materials and the RE alloy. We thank Tong Wang studying at University of Wollongong for helping with the in site observation experiments. This research was financially supported by the National Science Foundation of China (51461034) and the Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia (2019MS05046).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200072, People’s Republic of China

    Xirong Bao & Jun’an Wang

  2. School of Material and Metallurgy, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou, 014010, Inner Mongolia, People’s Republic of China

    Xirong Bao

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  1. Xirong Bao
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Correspondence to Jun’an Wang.

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No conflict of interest exits in the submission of this manuscript, and manuscript is approved by all authors for publication. I would like to declare on behalf of my co-authors that the work described was original research that has not been published previously, and not under consideration for publication elsewhere in whole or in part.

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Bao, X., Wang, J. Effects of lanthanum on bainite transformation behavior in Mn–Cr–Mo rail steel. Journal of Materials Research 36, 1400–1412 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43578-021-00220-7

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