The Structural and Strength Changes Resulting from Modification of Heat Treatment of High Carbon Steel

Abstract

Pearlitic steels containing from some 0,8 to 0,95% C belong to the group of unalloyed steels intended for cold drawing or rolling. One of the problems discussed in literature is cracking of pearlitic steel subjected to plastic working, caused by high brittleness of the lamellar precipitations of hard cementite. This issue is extremely important because it affects significantly reduce fatigue strength. The paper presents proposals to modify the process of heat treatment, results in getting a steel with spheroidal structure characterized by better plastic properties, in order to eliminate this problem.

Keywords

• pearlit
• cementite
• spheroidization
• plastic working