RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
A1 Kotous, Jakub
A1 Nacházelová, Daniela
A1 Dlouhý, Jaromír
A1 Rund, Martin
T1 Effect of Refined Spheroidizated Structure on Mechanical Properties of Spring Steel 51CrV4
JF Manufacturing Technology Journal
YR 2023
VO 23
IS 1
SP 40
OP 46
DO 10.21062/mft.2023.012
UL https://journalmt.com/artkey/mft-202301-0009.php
AB The steel 51CrV4 is widely used for production of springs. Materials research into spring steels aims to meet the requirements of industry, which mainly concern high yield and tensile strengths. Ductility has to be retained as the strength is increased. Also, the resistance against brittle fracture is im-portant, measured as fracture toughness. Enhancement of the mentioned mechanical properties can be accomplished by structural refinement. One possible way to refine the final quenched and tem-pered structure is to refine the soft annealed structure before quenching. The article is devoted to the Accelerated Carbide Spheroidisation and Refinement (ASR) with a comparison to conventional soft annealing (SA) in the 51CrV4 spring steel. Both spheroidization treatment (ASR by induction heating, SA by electric furnace) led in different carbide particle sizes. The carbide refinement alters the mate-rial's behaviour during quenching. Finer carbides dissolve more rapidly during austenitization at the quenching temperature. It is possible to lower the quenching temperature thanks to carbide refine-ment. Mechanical properties after hardening with different quenching temperatures were positively affected too.