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1. Introduction
The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) defines carbon steel as follows:
Steel is considered to be carbon steel when no minimum content is specified or required for chromium,
cobalt, columbium [niobium], molybdenum, nickel, titanium, tungsten, vanadium or zirconium, or any other
element to be added to obtain a desired alloying effect; when the specified minimum for copper does not
exceed 0.40 per cent; or when the maximum content specified for any of the following elements does not
exceed the percentages noted: manganese 1.65, silicon 0.60, copper 0.60.
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2. Carbon Steels
The American Iron and Steel Institute (ISO 15608 Group 1, 2, 3) defines carbon steel as follows:
Steel is considered to be carbon steel when no minimum content is specified or required for chromium,
cobalt, columbium [niobium], molybdenum, nickel, titanium, tungsten, vanadium or zirconium, or any other
element to be added to obtain a desired alloying effect; when the specified minimum for copper does not
exceed 0.40 per cent; or when the maximum content specified for any of the following elements does not
exceed the percentages noted: manganese 1.65, silicon 0.60, copper 0.60.
Carbon steel can be classified, according to various deoxidation practices, as rimmed, capped, semi-killed, or
killed steel.
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Deoxidation practice and the steelmaking process will have an effect on the properties of the steel. However,
variations in carbon have the greatest effect on mechanical properties, with increasing carbon content leading
to increased hardness and strength.
As such, carbon steels are generally categorized according to their carbon content. Generally speaking,
carbon steels contain up to 2% total alloying elements and can be subdivided into low-carbon steels, medium-
carbon steels, high-carbon steels, and ultrahigh-carbon steels; each of these designations is discussed below.
As a group, carbon steels are by far the most frequently used steels. More than 85% of the steel produced and
shipped in the United States is carbon steel.
2.1 Low-carbon
Steels contain up to 0.30% C. The largest category of this class of steel is flat-rolled products (sheet or strip),
usually in the cold-rolled and annealed condition. The carbon content for these high-formability steels is very
low, less than 0.10% C, with up to 0.4% Mn. Typical uses are in automobile body panels, tin plate, and wire
products.
For rolled steel structural plates and sections, the carbon content may be increased to approximately 0.30%,
with higher manganese content up to 1.5%. These materials may be used for stampings, forgings, seamless
tubes, and boiler plate.
2.2 Medium-carbon
Steels are similar to low-carbon steels except that the carbon ranges from 0.30 to 0.60% and the manganese
from 0.60 to 1.65%. Increasing the carbon content to approximately 0.5% with an accompanying increase in
manganese allows medium carbon steels to be used in the quenched and tempered condition.
The uses of medium carbon-manganese steels include shafts, axles, gears, crankshafts, couplings and
forgings. Steels in the 0.40 to 0.60% C range are also used for rails, railway wheels and rail axles.
High-carbon steels contain from 0.60 to 1.00% C with manganese contents ranging from 0.30 to 0.90%.
High-carbon steels are used for spring materials and high-strength wires.
2.3 Ultrahigh-carbon
Steels are experimental alloys containing 1.25 to 2.0% C.
These steels are thermomechanically processed to produce microstructures that consist of ultrafine, equiaxed
grains of spherical, discontinuous proeutectoid carbide particles.
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2.4 High-Strength Low-Alloy Steels
High-strength low-alloy (HSLA) steels, or microalloyed steels, are designed to provide better mechanical
properties and/or greater resistance to atmospheric corrosion than conventional carbon steels in the normal
sense because they are designed to meet specific mechanical properties rather than a chemical composition.
The HSLA steels have low carbon contents (0.05-0.25% C) in order to produce adequate formability and
weldability, and they have manganese contents up to 2.0%.
Small quantities of chromium, nickel, molybdenum, copper, nitrogen, vanadium, niobium, titanium and
zirconium are used in various combinations.
HSLA Classification:
The various types of HSLA steels may also have small additions of calcium, rare earth elements, or
zirconium for sulfide inclusion shape control.
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3. Low-alloy Steels
Low-alloy steels constitute a category of ferrous materials that exhibit mechanical properties superior to plain
carbon steels as the result of additions of alloying elements such as nickel, chromium, and molybdenum.
Total alloy content can range from 2.07% up to levels just below that of stainless steels, which contain a
minimum of 10% Cr.
For many low-alloy steels, the primary function of the alloying elements is to increase hardenability in order
to optimize mechanical properties and toughness after heat treatment.
In some cases, however, alloy additions are used to reduce environmental degradation under certain specified
service conditions.
As with steels in general, low-alloy steels can be classified according to:
Chemical composition, such as nickel steels, nickel-chromium steels, molybdenum steels, chromium-
molybdenum steels
Heat treatment, such as quenched and tempered, normalized and tempered, annealed.
Because of the wide variety of chemical compositions possible and the fact that some steels are used in more
than one heat-treated, condition, some overlap exists among the alloy steel classifications.
In this article, four major groups of alloy steels are addressed: (1) low-carbon quenched and tempered (QT)
steels, (2) medium-carbon ultrahigh-strength steels, (3) bearing steels, and (4) heat-resistant chromium-
molybdenum steels.
Combine high yield strength (from 350 to 1035 MPa) and high tensile strength with good notch toughness,
ductility, corrosion resistance, or weldability. The various steels have different combinations of these
characteristics based on their intended applications. However, a few steels, such as HY-80 and HY-100, are
covered by military specifications. The steels listed are used primarily as plate. Some of these steels, as well
as other, similar steels, are produced as forgings or castings.
Are structural steels with yield strengths that can exceed 1380 MPa. Many of these steels are covered by
SAE/AISI designations or are proprietary compositions. Product forms include billet, bar, rod, forgings,
sheet, tubing, and welding wire.
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3.3 Bearing steels
Used for ball and roller bearing applications are comprised of low carbon (0.10 to 0.20% C) case-hardened
steels and high carbon (-1.0% C) through-hardened steels. Many of these steels are covered by SAE/AISI
designations.
Contain 0.5 to 9% Cr and 0.5 to 1.0% Mo. The carbon content is usually below 0.2%. The chromium
provides improved oxidation and corrosion resistance, and the molybdenum increases strength at elevated
temperatures. They are generally supplied in the normalized and tempered, quenched and tempered or
annealed condition. Chromium-molybdenum steels are widely used in the oil and gas industries and in fossil
fuel and nuclear power plants.
The definition of the carbon steels by American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) is as follows:
“Steel is considered to be carbon steel when no minimum content is specified or required for chromium,
cobalt, columbium [niobium], molybdenum, nickel, titanium, tungsten, vanadium or zirconium, or any other
element to be added to obtain a desired alloying effect; when the specified minimum for copper does not
exceed 0.40 %; or when the maximum content specified for any of the following elements does not exceed
the percentages noted: manganese 1.65 %, silicon 0.60 %, copper 0.60 %.”
Steels can be classified based on different systems depending upon:
The composition: Carbon, micro alloy, low alloy, high alloy or stainless steel.
The manufacturing processes: Open hearth furnace, basic oxygen process, energy optimizing furnace
or electric arc furnace.
The finishing methods: Hot rolling, cold rolling or forging etc.
The type of product: Flat such as plate, sheet, strip, long such as wire rods, reinforcement bars,
rounds and shapes, pipes and tubes or forged products.
The de oxidation method: Killed, semi-killed, rimmed or capped steel
The microstructure: Ferritic, austenitic, pearlitic, bainitic or martensitic
The strength levels: HSS, HSLA or normal strength to meet standard requirement
The heat treatment process: Annealing, normalizing, thermo mechanical treatment, quenching and
tempering etc.
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Quality defining designations: Forging quality, commercial quality, drawing quality or welding
quality etc.
As a group carbon steels are the most frequently produced and used steels. More than 85 % of the steels
produced presently are carbon steels.
Variations in the carbon content of the steels have the greatest impact on the mechanical properties of steels.
Increase in the carbon content also results into increase in the hardness of the steels as well as their strengths.
Hence carbon steels are generally defined according to their carbon content. Normally carbon steels contain
up to 2 % total alloying elements and can be sub divided into ultra low carbon, low carbon, medium carbon.
Medium-carbon steels
These steels are similar to low carbon steels except that the carbon content in these steels are higher and
normally in the range of 0.31% to 0.60 % and the manganese from 0.60 % to 1.65 %.
Due to Increased carbon content, the medium carbon steels can be used in the quenched and tempered
condition.
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The medium carbon steels are used as shafts, axles, gears, crankshafts, couplings and forgings. Steels in the
0.40 % to 0.60 % C range are also used for rails, railway wheels and rail axles.
High strength low alloy (HSLA) steels, or micro-alloyed steels are designed to meet the specific requirement
of mechanical properties rather than a chemical composition.
These steels are designed to provide better mechanical properties and/or greater resistance to atmospheric
corrosion than conventional carbon steels.
The carbon content in HSLA steels may range from 0.05 % to 0.25 % and manganese content up to 2.0 % in
order to provide adequate deep drawing and welding properties.
In these steels small quantities of chromium, nickel, molybdenum, copper, nitrogen, vanadium, niobium,
titanium and zirconium are also used in various combinations.
The HSLA steels may also have small additions of calcium, rare earth elements, or zirconium for sulfide
inclusion shape control.
HSLA are classified as below:
Weathering steels or atmospheric corrosion resistant steels – These steels exhibit better atmospheric
corrosion resistance due to an adherent oxide layer formed on it. These steels normally contain
copper around 0.35 %.
Control rolled steels – These steels are hot rolled as per predetermined rolling schedule designed to
develop a highly deformed austenite structure that will transform to a very fine equi-axed ferrite
structure on cooling.
Pearlite reduced steels – The strength of these steels is obtained by very fine grain ferrite and by
precipitation hardening. These steels are having very low carbon content and hence little or no
pearlite in the microstructure.
Micro alloyed steels – These steels contain small content of niobium, vanadium, and/or titanium for
refinement of grain size as well as for precipitation hardening.
Acicular ferrite steels – These are very low carbon steels with sufficient level of hardenability.
The structure of these steels transform on cooling to a very fine high strength acicular ferrite structure
instead of the usual polygonal ferrite structure.
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Dual phase steels – These steels are processed to a micro-structure of ferrite containing small
uniformly distributed regions of high carbon martensite. These steels have low yield strength and a
high rate of work hardening. These steels are of high strength with superior formability.
Low alloy steels are steels that exhibit mechanical properties superior to the properties of plain carbon steels
due to the additions of alloying elements like nickel, chromium, and molybdenum.
Total alloy content in these steels may from 2.01 % up to the levels just below those of stainless steels which
contain a minimum of 10 % of Chromium.
In most of the low alloy steels, the primary function of the alloying elements is to increase harden ability so
as to optimize the mechanical properties and toughness after heat treatment.
However in some cases the addition of alloying elements is done to reduce environmental degradation for
specified service conditions.
Low alloy steels are generally classified as per:
Chemical composition – This classification is based on the alloying element such as tungsten steels,
nickel steels, nickel chromium steels, molybdenum steels, chromium molybdenum steels etc.
Heat treatment – low alloy steels can be classified based on heat treatment such as quenched and
tempered steels, normalized and tempered steels or annealed steels.
Since there is a wide variety of chemical compositions possible in low alloy steels and also due to the fact
that some steels can be used in more than one heat treated condition It is rather difficult to classify low alloy
steels and there exists some overlap. However below there are given four major groups of alloy steels which
are in common use.
Low-carbon quenched and tempered steels – These steels combine high yield strength (from 350 to
1035 N/Sq mm) and high tensile strength with good notch toughness, ductility, corrosion resistance
and weldability. These steels have various combinations of these characteristics based on their
intended applications. Some of these steels are produced as forgings or castings.
Medium-carbon ultra-high strength steels – These are structural steels which are having yield
strengths that can exceed 1380 N/Sq mm. Some of these steels are covered by designations given in
various standards while some other are having proprietary compositions. Product forms for these
steels include billets, bars, rods, forgings, sheets, pipes and welding wires.
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Bearing steels – These steels are used for ball and roller bearing applications. These steels consist of
low carbon (0.10 % to 0.20 % C) case hardened steels and high carbon (less than 1.0 % C) through
hardened steels. Some of these steels are covered by designations given in different standards.
Chromium-molybdenum heat-resistant steels – These steels contain 0.5 %to 9 % Cr and 0.5 % to 1.0
% Mo. The carbon content is usually below 0.2 %. The chromium provides improved oxidation and
corrosion resistance while the molybdenum increases strength at elevated temperatures. These steels
are normally supplied in the normalized and tempered, quenched and tempered or annealed
conditions.
4.1 Introduction
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The total deformation was varied from 65 per cent to 80 per cent. The finish-rolling temperature also varied
within a range 700-900 "C in steps of 50-100 "C. Ten number of laboratory-scale melt and subsequent
thermomechanically processing was taken up to optimize the mechanical properties.
In thermomechanically-controlled processing, (Fig. 4), reheating of the slabs is primarily done to enable the
slabs to be deformed plastically to predetermined thickness. Roughing refers to the first phase of plastic
deformation, generally above the recrystallisation-stop temperature (TRXN) here,
they is refined by repeated deformation and static recrystallisation. Further, plastic deformation can
be given to the plates below TRXN ie, in they nonrecrystallisation temperature region. At this stage, the
austenite gets continually elongated and broken without any recrystallisation of y occurring. The deformation
at this stage substantially increases the nucleation rate at y-g.r ain boundaries and within the y grams. The
intragranular nucleation of a is one of the most important aspects of thermomechanically-controlled
processing. The deformation of the plates may still be continued below Ar3 temperature (y → α
transformation temperature), ie, in the two-phase (y + α ) region. formation of substructures. At the same
tlme, y gets further work-hardened. During cooling after deformation, austenite transforms to equiaxed ferrite
grains, while deformed ferrite changes into subgrains. In the present investigation, the thermomechanically-
processed steels, under certain
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combinations of thermomechanically-controlled processing parameters, showed excellent combination of
tensile and impact properties at the room temperature, [Tables 2(a) and 2(b)].
The impact properties of the alloy, in longitudinal direction, at subzero temperature were also very high
[Table 2(b)J. The following properties obtained refer to the samples drawn from the steel plates having 12.5
mm thickness. The microstructure of this batch of steel with such superior combination of strength and
toughness showed non-equiaxed and fine-grained ferrite (Fig. 5).
The grain size was uniform and varied within a narrow band. The average grain size was -3.45 F.
These microstructural features were obtained using the following thermomechanically-controlled processing
parameters (Fig. 6):
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A low slab-reheating temperature of 1000-1050 "C was selected due to the following reasons:
Controlled dissolution of carbides/ carbonitrides7
Restriction of γ-grain growth by the undissolved carbides/carbonitrides, and
Uniform fine γ -grain prior to roughening, which strongly influenced the formation of a uniform
grain size distribution in the final microstructure.
The complete dissolution of the precipitates (with higher finish-rolling temperature) resulted in the increased
precipitation during rolling and subsequent cooling. It although resulted in higher strength due to increased
precipitation, but was accompanied by a loss in toughness of the alloy.
A 20-25 per cent deformation (in two passes) above TRXN was found to be optimum from the point of view
of:
A deformation more than 20-25 per cent was observed not to contribute further refinement of γ-
grains beyond a certain limit3 of 10-15μ
Since the slab-reheating temperature is low the temperature regime available for deforming γ in
recrystallisation temperature regime it narrow (50-100 oC). Two passes, each o 15-'16 per cent
deformation, and totallin 20-25 per cent was practically possible to b' applied within this temperature
regime.
Moreover, it was also intended to have highe percentage deformation below TRXN to achieve the
maximum benefits of deformation below TRXN
Continued deformation of the fine recrystallise γ -grains below the recrystallisation temperature leach to
pancaking of the γ -grains. They deformed below TRXN had various defect structures, such as elongate
austenite grain boundaries, twin boundaries, are highly dislocated region. The more they was flattened the
finer the grain size formed after the γ to transformation, as the defect structures, which a associated with the
flattened y, provides nucleation site for the α formation. The alloy was design c in such a way that it was
possible to obtain a wid y non-recrystallisation temperature region (-21 0C) and it was possible to give a
deformation about 75-80 per cent below TRXN, in four passe The copper bas less effect on the reduction on t' γ
to α transformation temperature. At the sar time, boron is also effective in preventing ferrite formation. The
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reduction of y to a transformation temperature has been observed to be more pronounce when both copper
and boron are present, ie, a synergism exists between copper and boron. It is reported that the above
transformation temperature is lowered by nearly 110 oC with furnace cooling when 1.8 per cent copper is
added to boron-steels9:
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5.4 Finish-rolling Temperature
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Concurrently, the shape of the grains also plays a dominating role on the final properties of the alloy. A non-
equiaxed ferrite grain microstructure with irregular grain boundaries provides a more tortuous path for a
crack to propagate compared to that of an equiaxed grain microstructure.
This results in absorption of more energy during crack propagation, and thus, enhancing the impact toughness
value of the steel. In the present steel, the ferrite microstructure has jagged grain boundaries and the shape of
the ferrite grains is off-polygonal, anisotropic, and irregular, (Fig. 5). This type of ferrite is often designated
as quasi-polygonal ferriteμ In this type of microstructure, the trace of the prior austenite grain boundaries is
scarcely seen. (Fig. S), as the αμ grow crossing over the γ-grain boundary. The αμ phase may nucleate as an
allotriomorph at the γ-grain boundary or other defect but grows mainly in a much lower temperature region.
As a result, these ferrite grains exhibit off- polygonal/ irregular/acicular apes. The presence of this type of
ferrite has contributed to the enhancement in strength and toughness values". It is not only the shape and size
of grains but also the distribution of grain size which has a significant role to play
to affect the mechanical properties.
A mixed gram size, ie, a wide grain size distribution has a deleterious effect on the mechanical properties1*.
The presence of mixed grain sizes has been shown to be responsible for the deterioration in resistance to low-
temperature brittle fractures in similar grades of steel". In the present case, the grain size distribution was
found to be uniform and narrow (Fig. 7). This also contributed to the enhancement of the mechanical
properties.
A new generation of high-strength steel with a combination of superior strength and toughness has been
successfully developed through thermomechanically-controlled processing route. The product is available in
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as rolled condition rather than in quench and tempered condition. The design utilizes a novel and innovative
concept of grain refining using micro alloying elements and thermomechanically-controlled processing as the
means of optimizing mutually exclusive properties of high strength together with high toughness. The
combination of high strength and toughness is realized when the following features of microstructure are
obtained:
Non-equiaxed ferritic microstructure
Fine grain (< 5μ average size)
Uniform grain size distribution
The above microstructural features could be produced when the chemistry of the steel was suitably
designed as given in Table 1 and the controlled rolling schedule was designed as per the following
thermomechanically-controlled processing parameters:
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