Physical Modelling the Microstructure Formation in Advanced High-Strength Steels

Abstract

For the production and development of Advanced High-Strength Steels adequate understanding of the formation mechanisms of the metallic microstructure is crucial. The superior properties of these steels are based on a sometimes delicate balance between thermodynamic (in) stability and dynamic processes, in which thermodynamic driving force and interface kinetics determine the development of the microstructure of the steel. In order to achieve further development and optimisation of such steels, experimental and modelling studies should go beyond microstructural characterisation in terms of average properties only. In this paper some examples will be given in which full (3D-) microstructures are simulated on the basis of the evolution of diffusional transformations. Although nucleation is not understood to sufficient extent to be predicted quantitatively, growth can adequately be described as governed by short-range diffusion at the interface (the basis for the interface mobility) and, in case of a partitioning phase transformation, the long-range diffusion behaviour (most notably of carbon). Whereas in the literature often one of the two processes is assumed to be rate-determining (interface control or diffusion control), physical modelling taking both into account ("mixed-mode growth") has also been effectuated. The widely used technique of Phase Field modelling and an alternative mixed-mode approach based on Cellular Automata will be presented and compared in this paper. Whereas Phase Field modelling is applicable to a wider range of processes, the Cellular-Automata method is highly efficient and allows 3D-simulations of entire process cycles within very limited computation times. Examples of these modelling techniques applied to the development of microstructures in Dual-Phase and Quenching-&-Partitioning steels are given.