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A study on heat affected zone softening in resistance spot welded dual phase steel by nanoindentation

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Abstract

The base metal (BM) and the heat affected zone (HAZ) of a resistance spot welded dual phase steel have been evaluated by nanoindentation hardness testing. Three different surface conditions have been explored on the BM for assessing the nanohardness response. Softening has been investigated along the sub-critical HAZ by making nanoindentations on individual phases such as ferrite and tempered martensite (TM) at various distances from the line of lower critical temperature Ac1. A broken appearance accompanied with sub-micron particles were consistently found on TM at 100 μm from the Ac1 line suggesting carbide precipitation along with partial recovery of martensite. The morphology of TM kept on changing while moving away from Ac1 towards the BM as the fraction of broken appearance was reduced and the sub-micron particles became finer. SEM observations resulted in good agreement with the nanohardness of the TM phase along the sub-critical HAZ. In contrast, microhardness results suggested the termination of tempering at a shorter distance with respect to Ac1 and hence a reduced extension of the softening region. The improved resolution for assessing softening through nanoindentation was due to the possibility of avoiding the contribution of the phase boundaries because of the smaller size of the indentation; this also permitted evaluation of TM at low peak temperatures far from Ac1 where early stages of tempering took place.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the funding from Auto21, one of the Networks of Centres for Excellence supported by the Canadian Government, The Initiative for Automotive Manufacturing Innovation (IAMI) supported by the Ontario Government, International Zinc Association (IZA), Belgium, Arcelor Mittal Dofasco and Huys Industries in Canada. V. H. Baltazar Hernandez would also like to acknowledge the support from CONACYT Mexico and the Autonomous University of Zacatecas Mexico. The author would like to acknowledge the comments and suggestions of Prof. Scott Lawson and Dr. Sashank Nayak from the Centre for Advanced Materials Joining at the University of Waterloo.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Advanced Materials Joining, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave. West, N2L3G1, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Victor Hugo Baltazar Hernandez, Yasuaki Okita & Norman Y. Zhou

  2. MPyM-EPMM Academic Unit of Engineering, Autonomous University of Zacatecas, 801 Ramon Lopez Velarde Avenue, 98000, Zacatecas, Mexico

    Victor Hugo Baltazar Hernandez

  3. Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, 721302, India

    Sushanta Kumar Panda

  4. JFE Steel Corporation, 1 Kawasaki-cho, Chou-ku, Chiba, 260-0835, Japan

    Yasuaki Okita

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  1. Victor Hugo Baltazar Hernandez
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  2. Sushanta Kumar Panda
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  4. Norman Y. Zhou
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Correspondence to Victor Hugo Baltazar Hernandez.

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Baltazar Hernandez, V.H., Panda, S.K., Okita, Y. et al. A study on heat affected zone softening in resistance spot welded dual phase steel by nanoindentation. J Mater Sci 45, 1638–1647 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-009-4141-0

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