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Superbainite - Laboratory Concept to Commercial Product

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Superbainite - Laboratory Concept to Commercial Product
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Mass production of fine bainite: APMS conference
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Abstract
A lecture given by Andrew Rose at the Adventures in the Physical Metallurgy of Steels (APMS) conference held in Cambridge University. The talk describes the pioneering technology for the mass production of the world's first bulk nanostructured metal, the so-called superbainite that consists of slender platelets of bainitic ferrite separated by thinner films of retained austenite. Tata Steel have undertaken work to demonstrate the feasibility of superbainite for application as armour steel. The challenge was to adapt the composition to the demands of a tonnage production route, while still attaining the property advantages of superbainite. The Tata production route involves oxygen steelmaking, continuous casting and hot strip rolling, followed by downstream processing to a final form as armour plate. Each of these stages presents challenges to the production of high-strength steels. Tata Steel Research have reviewed the requirements for production of superbainite, and undertaken experimental work, including optical and electron metallography, studies of transformation behaviour, and mechanical testing, to justify the final choice of production parameters. As a result a composition and process route have been formulated which enable production of commercial casts of superbainite without danger to the process. Further development work has supported the downstream processing steps culminating in heat treatment of the material, and enabled the optimisation of the parameters involved. Metallurgical examination and testing have confirmed that this processing gives the superbainite microstructure with the expected properties. Ballistic testing has shown that superbainite armour is comparable with other armour steels competing in the same area.
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GoldschmiedehandwerkBandstahlBlatt <Papier>NutzfahrzeugTata Iron and Steel CompanyAusschuss <Technik>WarmumformenBlatt <Papier>Vorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimation
GreiffingerBandstahlVorlesung/Konferenz
BandstahlTagebauBandstahlTagebauVorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimation
VW SantanaHüttenindustrieBandstahlSatz <Drucktechnik>Vorlesung/Konferenz
BandstahlSuperbikeTauchanzugDiagrammVorlesung/Konferenz
Pfadfinder <Flugzeug>Satz <Drucktechnik>Vorlesung/KonferenzDiagramm
BandstahlProfilwalzenDrehmaschineVorlesung/Konferenz
MikroformBandstahlDrehmaschineSatz <Drucktechnik>Vorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimationBesprechung/Interview
BandstahlPanzerungPhotographische PlatteMutter <Technik>BandstahlMaterialTata Iron and Steel CompanyRaumfahrtzentrumPanzerungLunkerVorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimationBesprechung/Interview
PanzerungMunitionWaffentechnikBandstahlPhotographische PlatteMutter <Technik>PlattierenBandstahlPanzerungSatz <Drucktechnik>BlechEntwicklung <Photographie>FahrzeugProfilwalzenPostkutscheRootsgebläseTata Iron and Steel CompanyKugelschreiberRungenwagenTagebauVorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimationBesprechung/Interview
Entwicklung <Photographie>EisengießereiPostkutscheSchlichte <Textiltechnik>RangierlokomotiveNutzfahrzeugTagebauKugellagerFlachstahlWalken <Textilveredelung>SchmalspurlokomotiveBandstahlKupferbarrenVorlesung/Konferenz
Entwicklung <Photographie>Comte AC-4 GentlemanBlechdoseBandstahlPatrone <Munition>WarmumformenTauchanzugVorlesung/Konferenz
Entwicklung <Photographie>RangierlokomotiveNutzfahrzeugWarmumformenVorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimation
Patrone <Munition>WalzenBandstahlRootsgebläseBesprechung/InterviewVorlesung/Konferenz
BandstahlFlachstahlBesprechung/InterviewVorlesung/Konferenz
BandstahlTagebauHüttenindustrieProfilwalzenMaterialVorlesung/KonferenzBesprechung/Interview
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Patrone <Munition>WalzenMaterialBandstahlLaserschneidenPanzerungWärmebehandlungVorlesung/Konferenz
SchusswaffeEisengießereiWalzenTonschlickerTagebauPostkutscheSteinkohlenbergbauBandstahlTagebauWalzenRootsgebläseVorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimationDiagramm
TagebauTagebauBandstahlWärmebehandlungModellbauerVorlesung/KonferenzBesprechung/Interview
TagebauComte AC-4 GentlemanGerberErsatzteilModellbauerFlachstahlBandstahlWalzenVorlesung/KonferenzDiagramm
LinienschiffModellbauerBlechTagebauVorlesung/KonferenzDiagrammBesprechung/Interview
KofferNutzfahrzeugBandstahlTata Iron and Steel CompanySatz <Drucktechnik>WarmumformenVerdichterVorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimationBesprechung/Interview
BandstahlSuperbikeVorlesung/KonferenzBesprechung/Interview
KofferOptisches InstrumentNutzfahrzeugEisengießereiComputeranimationVorlesung/Konferenz
ÜberschallstaustrahltriebwerkSatz <Drucktechnik>WarmumformenProfilwalzenZylinderblockVorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimation
Band <Textilien>WalzenBand <Textilien>ComputeranimationVorlesung/KonferenzBesprechung/Interview
AbtriebswelleErsatzteilSchlauchkupplungVorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimationBesprechung/Interview
BandstahlMaterialVorlesung/KonferenzDiagrammBesprechung/Interview
Puma <Panzer>BandstahlPlattierenWerkstattSchieneMaterialSchmiedenLaserschneidenVorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimationDiagrammBesprechung/Interview
MaterialSchmiedenLocherBandstahlEisengießereiVorlesung/Konferenz
BandstahlBlechVorlesung/Konferenz
BandstahlWärmebehandlungKorbwareHochofenAssociazione per il Disegno IndustrialeVorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimation
WärmebehandlungWarmumformenHochofenBandstahlKorbwareVorlesung/Konferenz
KorbwareBlechdoseSturmgewehrBandstahlDiagrammVorlesung/KonferenzBesprechung/Interview
Fiat 500Airbus 300Satz <Drucktechnik>WarmumformenBandstahlPanzerungComputeranimationDiagrammBesprechung/Interview
PanzerungBehälterbauHüttenindustrieLocherPanzerungZylinderblockBehälterbauVorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimation
RutschungVersilberungTrenntechnikVorlesung/KonferenzBesprechung/InterviewComputeranimation
MunitionRangierlokomotiveNutzfahrzeugEntwicklung <Photographie>PanzerungBandstahlEntwicklung <Photographie>PanzerungRangierlokomotiveTagebauProfilwalzenVorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimation
ErsatzteilPanzerungVorlesung/Konferenz
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WarmumformenLeistenSchlichte <Textiltechnik>Vorlesung/Konferenz
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MikroformSatz <Drucktechnik>Schlichte <Textiltechnik>Entwicklung <Photographie>Pick-Up <Kraftfahrzeug>Vorlesung/Konferenz
MikroformWärmebehandlungNutzfahrzeugProof <Graphische Technik>Vorlesung/Konferenz
MaschineEisengießereiVorlesung/Konferenz
MaschinePatrone <Munition>FlachstahlEisengießereiVorlesung/Konferenz
SchmiedenStanzteilMikroformLaserschneidenVorlesung/Konferenz
Vorlesung/KonferenzComputeranimation
Transkript: Englisch(automatisch erzeugt)
Our next speaker, Andrew Rose from Tata Steel. He's going to talk about Super Bay Knight. Yes, Super Bay Knight. Thank you. I'd like to begin by thanking Harry and the organizing committee for accepting my
proposal for a paper here and allowing me to present this paper, which is on Tata Steel's work to move Super Bay Knight from a laboratory concept to a commercial product. And there will therefore be some obvious comparisons between what I'm going to say and the presentation
given by Dr. Garthi Amato yesterday on the Super Bay, on the Nano Bay project. I'm going to begin with a quick note on some definitions because I'm going to be using
the word Super Bay Knight in two distinct senses. First of all, the one that many of us are familiar with, Super Bay Knight is a steel structure which can be developed under certain circumstances having very high strength and hardness. And secondly, it's also the term we used to refer to the Tata grade of strip steel,
which has been developed over the last few years, which is able to be treated to give this structure. However, we sometimes refer to it as Super Bay Knight even when it doesn't have that structure. And as we all know, it was originally developed at Cambridge University in the 1990s in Harry's
group. So to begin with the basics of Super Bay Knight's metallurgy, this is a CCT diagram, which is the type of diagram metallurgists use to describe the effects of cooling rates on the transformation behaviour of different types of steel.
And for the Super Bay Knight treatment, what we need is a treatment profile like this where the steel is cooled quickly from austenite temperature to a low temperature and then given a long isothermal transformation treatment during which the Super Bay Knight
structure is formed. And Super Bay Knight has a high silicon level, which gives the thermodynamic effects of suppressing carbide suppression in the Super Bay Knight structure. Two other things that we can note from this diagram before we move on are that
there is a hardenability requirement. If you want to produce the Super Bay Knight structure in a thick section, there has to be sufficient hardenability to get the whole of the set that knows before perlite begins to form. And the last thing that can be noted from this diagram is that you also have the option
of applying a slow cooling rate to the steel and so you can still end up with a fully pearlitic structure, which will be relatively soft and formable. Subsequently, that structure can then be treated to produce the Super Bay Knight structure.
So what does the Super Bay Knight structure look like? Well, schematically, it looks like this very fine carbide-free ferrite laths with pockets and films of retained austenite in between them, which have an increased carbon level, the carbon having been rejected from the ferrite laths that are formed but not formed
carbides because of the effect of silicon. And the well-known electron micrograph showing this structure shows these features in the structure, ferrite laths with retained austenite in between them.
So Super Bay Knight is a type of steel which has a very high carbon content plus other alloying elements present and a very fine structure, which leads us to expect that it will have a very high strength and hardness.
And the claims made for the Super Bay Knight structure is that it can give about 2.2 gigapascals or more UTS and in a 3D structure. That is, it's capable of being formed in a piece of steel which is both wide and thick, so it's a 3D structure.
Well, it's all very well having a new wonder material, but you've got to have a use for it and you've got to be able to make it. The properties claimed for Super Bay Knight led to the proposal that it could be used as an armour steel. And this also coincided at the same time with a desire by Tata's Port Talbot Works
to move into higher value steels, which would certainly include armour steels, and also by a desire by the UK Ministry of Defence to develop an onshore supplier for armour steels. Tata Steel, Super Bay Knight was therefore considered to be suitable for armour plates
and if anybody needs a quote to prove it, that's a quote from Lord Grayson on the MOD's need for an onshore manufacturing capability for armour steels. The type of application that was envisaged for Super Bay Knight was as a plique armour,
which David described earlier this morning, that is additional sheets of armour bolted onto the outside of a vehicle, giving additional protection to the vehicle and which can be replaced quickly in the event of battle damage. So the adventure for Tata Steel was to find out whether a Super Bay Knight steel
could be made in a relatively thin sheet form through a boss steel making route, boss steel making and hot strip rolling route to give sheets of armour of sufficient flatness to be used in this sort of way.
The development activities undertaken in Tata Steel can be described like this. At an early stage there was a pilot scale plant made in the Normanton Heavy Pilot Plant at our Teesside Technology Centre.
That's a cast that was of about six tonnes size, which was cast as an ingot and at that size it's large enough for processing through commercial mills. You can't put very small experimental steels through a commercial mill,
they drop between the gaps of roller tables and get lost in other ways. So you have to have a full sized cast to be able to do that. This cast enabled that to be done and it demonstrated that commercial scale production was feasible. The ingot could be rolled to narrow slab and then to narrow strip and this gave confidence that such a steel could be processed through a commercial mill
and that it would have the properties required of an armour steel. There was also a considerable amount of work done at Tata Swindon Technology Centre where I work investigating the effects of possible variations in the composition of the Super Bay Knights.
I'll come to the reasons for those shortly, but that looked at those possible variations and validated that the Super Bay Knights structural properties could still be obtained under those conditions,
variations in compositions and also characterising the properties to make sure that those could still be achieved. And finally there was a considerable amount of modelling work done within Tata R&D on the different steps of the process route which we were expecting to follow
to validate that the steel could indeed be successfully processed through that route. So what was the process route? The route we were envisaging was an oxygen steel making route. This is where ASCO would have had a considerable advantage over Port Talbot
in their ability to put a large amount of alloying elements in. In BOSS steel making, the alloying additions are only made after steel making and the additions of large amounts of alloying elements have a big effect on temperature control in the steel.
Next it would be cast as wide slab and this brings in considerations of the risks of breakout, segregation and cracking. These relate both to the amount of alloying element present in the steel and to the condition of the caster.
Breakout obviously undesirable, but segregation would damage the material and cracking on a large scale would also make it unusable. So we had to be confident that we could continuously cast it in this form without incurring these problems.
Next hot strip rolling, when you put a strong steel through a rolling mill even though it's hot the mill still has to be strong enough to handle it both to roll it and to coil it and so we needed to be confident that this too could be done.
That would lead to production as wide coiling and then for downstream processing to armour plates we would have to decoil the material and cut it to length giving further problems of dealing with strong materials.
Laser profiling, cutting the steel into smaller pieces for further processing as armour was expected to be done by laser cutting. Perforation and heat treatment which are the final steps in forming the armour product which I will talk about at the end of the lecture.
And of course we had to consider the overall cost and feasibility of this route. A point to note about the hot strip rolling route, in hot strip rolling the steel is rolled through a sequential rolling mill like this
cooled on the run out table and then coiled and the coiling step therefore gives a very slow cooling step at the end and so we naturally have within the hot strip route the ability to cool the steel slowly from the austenite temperature
and give the steel in a pearlitic structure which would be relatively amenable to further forming before heat treatment to form the super bainite structure. The modelling of the hot strip rolling route was done in Tata's Imauda Technology Centre.
They have a rolling model called Titan and this could be used to predict the temperature profile that would be followed by different parts of the slab moving through the rolling mill.
It's not a very surprising profile I suppose but you can see the points where the steel loses temperature when it's actually within the strands. And the roll forces required can also be predicted by this model. The model has to be calibrated by using hot workability data gained from global testing.
And then when applied in the model they validated that the Port Talbot hot strip mill would be capable of rolling super bainite to the required gauges.
So the commercial compositions that were eventually made were made to this specification and this is the published commercial spec of Tata super bainite steel. And some points we can pick out from that. Silicon we know is necessary in super bainite for suppression of the formation of
carbides but this is a lower level than was recommended by the original work. Because of the downward pressure that we were under to keep the steel composition as lean as possible. I'll draw attention to the phosphorous level although that's definitely not an element that we want.
But phosphorous is well known as being an element which promotes segregation in steel and so we need to keep it to a minimum. And chromium and molybdenum levels are necessary to give sufficient hardenability within the steel.
Originally we were hoping that we might be able to dispense with the molybdenum as well. But we were also hoping, we were also envisaging initially that the cooling of super bainite
from the austenite temperature to the isothermal treatment temperature would be done by forced air cooling. And in the light of that the hardenability provided by molybdenum was found to be necessary. But molybdenum also has an additional advantage in that it's known to reduce the deleterious effects of phosphorous within the steel.
So it was a good thing for that reason. The commercial cast made at Port Talbot have been examined at Swindon Technology Centre. In the Azerold formed as we expect we get a pearlitic structure and when heat treated we get a super bainitic structure shown there optically.
Also by scanning electron microscopy we get this type of structure with a very fine structure with a blocky phase in between it. The blocky phase was initially thought to be retained austenite however you can see on this that there is a fine structure within it.
And when this was examined by EBSD we found that those blocky phases were indeed not all retained austenite. You can see this block here is largely austenite with only some ferrite within it.
And examination by EBSD showed that the ferrite was in the form of very fine packets within those areas. The potential for segregation during casting would also have been a concern for us. And when we looked at the hot roll coil we found a banded structure like this which initially caught us a lot of concern.
Would those white bands be martensite? Examination showed that they were not martensite. They are segregated regions where the chromium is sufficiently high to affect the etching behaviour but they're not actually martensite.
Examination by transmission electron microscope showed as I expect most of you expected that the tartar super bainite was not free of carbides. The silicon level was not sufficiently high to prevent that. However the very fine bainite laughs we believe are free of carbides but there are carbides in other parts of the structure.
Testing of the mechanical properties of the steel gave the strength levels that were expected. Even testing high strength steels is difficult.
This along with many of our other tensile tests failed prematurely because during tensile testing of a high strength steel the steel is very sensitive to the surface preparation of the material. However these tests have shown that the claimed tensile strengths can be achieved within this material.
Toughness was tested by sharpie testing and gave what for a plate steel is a very poor sharpie level. However it can be noted that these sharpie toughness levels are comparable with high carbon rail steels.
Now I said earlier on that we were expecting to be further processing the material by laser cutting and so the effect of that on the material was also of interest. And when we looked at the laser cut edge of the material we found that, as you might expect,
there was a layer of martensite along the edge of the hole that was produced and hardness rising to a very high level which had some other practical concerns for us because we were hoping and planning that
the steel would be able to be formed to a limited extent to curved shapes and if the steel had been cut by laser cutting a martensitic edge would make cracking from the edge very likely
and this is what actually happened and so laser cut steel has to be either dressed or heat treated to remove the martensitic layer before it can be successfully bent. I also said earlier that we were hoping to be able to carry out heat
treatment using forced air cooling from the austenite temperature to form the isothermal treatment temperature. We tried to do that on a large sheet of steel and ended up with a piece of steel this shape so we haven't pursued that route any further.
Heat treatment has been carried out using a salt bath treatment of smaller pieces of steel which can be tightly clamped into a basket in this sort of arrangement and heat treated in a salt bath treatment furnace and I have to mention here the contribution of ADI
treatments in Birmingham for their contribution to the heat treatment work that's been carried out on Super Bay night. The salt bath treatment process works like this. You have a furnace which is that shape, an austenitization
zone at one end, a purge zone between and a treatment chamber with a salt bath within it. The basket of steel that I've just shown is passed initially to the austenitization then through the salt bath and then out that way.
The temperature of the salt bath treatment can be changed and so you have the possibility of getting a range of different properties within the steel by using different treatment temperatures. Use of higher temperatures leads as you would expect to forming a softer structure but that structure taking less time to form.
I think there was a question yesterday about the effect of manganese on the formation of the Super Bay night structure.
Our work has indeed shown that the manganese level can have a significant effect on the rate at which the Super Bay night structure is formed in this process. So we come now to the armour steel product shown here. This is an actual piece of Super Bay night armour.
And after all the exciting metallurgy that's gone on in Super Bay night, the most exciting thing that everybody seems to be able to see about Super Bay night armour is that it's got holes in it. Counterintuitively for armour, but the effects of perforation in armour is to increase the ballistic efficiency
of the armour by deflecting bullets, reducing the weight of the armour and acting as crack stoppers. Don't worry I've nearly finished. This slide shows two pieces of Super Bay night that have been ballistically tested. Monolithic piece without perforation and it's ended up in many pieces perforated with several hits in it and it's still in one piece.
And so that brings me to my conclusions. Super Bay night developed as a laboratory concept, investigated in laboratory and pilot scale testing, put into commercial production and Bay night armour steels are still under development.
Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Question, anyone? Thanks, Andrew. Have you thought of or tried to do the austempering treatment in the hot strip mill wound coil form somehow?
No, because Super Bay night in the heat treated condition is not deformable at all.
And so if you form the Super Bay night structure on the coil, you'd never be able to uncoil it.
So you mentioned about cost and affordability of this product, so in the early part of that. So have you done the analysis that this is indeed competing with existing armours or is it possible to talk?
Yes, we believe that it would be competitive with existing armour. I can't quote figures. Not because I'm not allowed to, but because I can't. But yes, we do believe that it's competitive, yes.
Thank you, Andrew. It was a very interesting talk actually. Are you able to comment on whether you saw intergranular fracture on your tensile test?
No. I don't think we've actually done fractography on the tensile specimens. Thank you.
Regarding those blocky areas, and you were saying that they were, according to EBST phase mapping, they were not necessarily austenite, they were some ferrites from austenite. Well, last year I was doing some work with someone from CENIM and she had measured the gamma content using, was it X-ray? X-ray.
And then we were doing the same with EBST. We found consistently there was a lot less austenite as measured using EBST than there was as using X-ray. So I am not convinced that the EBST is always correctly inhibiting the phase. EBST always gives a lower retained austenite fraction than XRD because XRD cannot resolve very small areas of retained austenite.
So our XRD results for retained austenite are often in the 20% area where our EBST results are in the sort of 5 to 10% area.
Right, so you're already aware of all this. Those sort of figures, yes. Would it be possible that the retained austenite transformed to martensite during a sample preparation for EBST? It is possible, I think.
Yes, some of those microstructures bear a lot of similarity to martensite under EBST.
We also believe that transformation of retained austenite takes place during ballistic testing, hardly surprisingly. It's a pity that you didn't show the evolution of the microstructure as the transformation temperature.
You just saw an SEN micrograph with a micron-sized blocky austenite that I believe should be responsible of the load utility that you found. In comparison to the original alloys or nanobane development.
But I wonder if you got fully transformed, you still have that transformation temperature that you did. You didn't provide quite clear kinetics analysis of that. What was the heat treatment temperature and time of those micrographs that you saw?
And those properties, tensile tests that you saw? Most of our heat treatments have been done at 225 degrees. And we believe that transformation is largely complete within eight hours.
This is another area where we're under a practical constraint in terms of the heat treatment time that can be carried out by a commercial heat treater. But we believe that heat treatment is largely complete within that time.
How to prevent the carbon segregation and cracking during continuous casting?
How to prevent carbon segregation and cracking? It's a matter of making sure that the casting machine is in tip-top alignment condition before the casting is carried out.
Well that's basically it really. Yes, to control segregation during continuous casting the machine has to be in very good condition. And also the slabs have to be slow cooled when they're taken off the end of the casting machine to reduce the risk of thermal cracking.
Which can, in extreme cases, can cause a slab to drop in too. So yes. We have a question from the internet.
David is asking is the preparation done by a thermal press? If it's a small process, if so, does the heat affected zone present a problem? Is the preparation done by a? Thermal process. Which preparations? I'm sorry, I don't know.
Preparation. No, no. Perforation we have looked at. Laser cutting, stamping and punching and drilling. The laser cutting is a thermal process and the micrograph I showed of the laser cut edge was the edge of a perforation that was produced in that way.
And so it causes the sort of problems that I talked about. Punching and drilling are not thermal processes.
Thank you Andrew. Thank you.