Regular Article

Metallurgical design of micro-alloyed high strength steels for forgings

¹ Università di Perugia, Dipartimento di Ingegneria, Via G. Duranti 93, 06125 Perugia, Italy
² Acciai Speciali Terni, V.B. Brin 118, 05100 Terni, Italy
³ Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Via del Politecnico 1, 00133 Roma, Italy

^* Email: andrea.dischino@unipg.it

Received: 28 December 2016
Received in final form: 3 May 2017
Accepted: 5 July 2017

Abstract

To fulfill the industrial demand of forged steels with high tensile properties and microstructural requirements coupled with reduced cost, the possibility to increase the properties of C-Mn steels by means of precipitation strengthening as achieved by micro-alloying (and without the addition of expensive elements such as Mo and Cr) has been evaluated. In order to do that, the effect of V addition has been exploited by means of metallurgical modelling followed by a laboratory ingot manufacturing. Heat treatment that has been designed aimed to achieve the target tensile properties. Results show that ASTM A694 F70 grade requirements can be fulfilled by 0.15% V addition and a proper heat treatment in a ferrite-pearlite microstructure, representative of a forged component.