Structure Refinement of Spring Steel 51Crv4 after Accelerated Spheroidisation

Abstract

AbstractMaterial research of the spring steels tries to meet requirements of the industry, which are mainly higher yield and tensile strength. Steel 51CrV4 is widely used for spring production. Optimization of its properties lies in tensile and yield strength enhancement without decrease in ductility in quenched and tempered state. This can be accomplished by structural refinement. One possible way to refine final quenched and tempered structure is refinement of the soft annealed structure before quenching. The article is devoted to accelerated carbide spheroidisation and refinement (ASR) and subsequent hardening of the 51CrV4 spring steel. Samples with different carbide size were prepared by conventional soft annealing in atmosphere furnace and ASR process by induction heating. Influence of the structural refinement on the properties of quenched and tempered state was studied.