High toughness in the intercritically reheated coarse-grained (ICRCG) heat-affected zone (HAZ) of low carbon microalloyed steel

Abstract Motivated by the small lattice mismatch between ferrite and vanadium nitride (VN), we describe here the welding thermal cycle simulation that provides high toughness in the ICRCG HAZ of low carbon V–N steel. This unique behavior is attributed to the formation of ultra-fine grained ferrite along prior austenite grain boundaries generated by the first pass welding thermal cycle with high misorientation boundaries, where V(C, N) precipitates provide potential nucleation sites for ferrite, leading to extraordinary refinement of martensite/austenite (M/A) constituent. Nitrogen stimulates the precipitation behavior of V(C, N). The nucleation of high density of V(C, N) precipitates consumes carbon-content in the austenite, leading to decrease in the carbon-content in the M/A constituent, with consequent decrease in hardness. The increase in toughness is explained in terms of Griffith's crack propagation theory.