Precipitation Hardening of Titanium Carbides in Ti Micro-Alloyed Ultra-High Strength Steel

New 700MPa hot rolled ultra-high strength steels were successfully developed by using Ti micro-alloying technology in CSP line. Experimental methods, such as OM, TEM and chemical phase analysis, were used to study the experimental steel. The microstructure is composed of quasi-polygonal ferrite grains, whose average grain size is about 4μm. Large number of nanometer TiC particles distribute along dislocations. The mass fraction of MX phase is 0.0793wt%, in which the particles smaller than 10nm account for 33.7%. The contribution of precipitation hardening resulting from nanometer particles is calculated as approximate 158MPa.