Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771

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Materials Science & Engineering A

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/msea

Comparative study on mechanical and corrosion fatigue properties of

high-strength bridge steels produced by TMCP and intercritical quenching
& tempering process
Jun Wang a, b, Liyang Sun a, Hongchi Ma a, *, Xuequn Cheng a, Xiaogang Li a
a
Key Laboratory for Corrosion and Protection (MOE), National Materials Corrosion and Protection Data Center, Institute for Advanced Materials and Technology,
University of Science and Technology Beijing, 100083, China
b
Nanjing Iron & Steel United Co., Ltd., Nanjing, 210035, Jiangsu, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The mechanical and corrosion fatigue properties of Q690 bridge steels produced by two different process were
High-strength bridge steel comparatively investigated. The steel produced by thermal-mechanical controlled processing (TMCP) and
Coastal-industrial marine environment tempering had a slightly superior corrosion fatigue property to that produced by intercritical quenching &
Intercritical quenching & tempering
tempering (IQT). However, the TMCP + T prepared steel had a poor ductility and corrosion fatigue microcracks
Micro-galvanic corrosion
Corrosion fatigue
were prone to initiate due to high density of dislocations and M/A constituents. On the contrary, the steel
produced by IQT had a good combination of mechanical and corrosion fatigue property. The corrosion fatigue
initiation and propagation mechanism for both steels was proposed.

1. Introduction cracking (SCC) or corrosion fatigue resistance through alloy elements

With the requirement of designing long-span and long-life bridges,
there is a increasing demand for bridge steels with high strength-
toughness, high corrosion resistance and excellent fatigue perfor­
mance. 690 MPa grade high-strength bridge steels have been developed
and applied worldwide. However, high-strength steels are subjected to
high risk of corrosion fatigue damage in harsh environment due to the
coupling effect of severe corrosion and fatigue loading [1,2], which may
cause catastrophic accident. Our recent work indicated that Q690qE
high-strength bridge steel was sensitive to corrosion fatigue damage in
coastal-industrial marine environment [3]. Thus, it is urgent to study the
corrosion fatigue behaviors and mechanism of high-strength bridge
steels in harsh environment, and to improve their strength-toughness
and corrosion fatigue property through compositional or microstruc­
tural tailing.
A lot of work has been done on corrosion fatigue behaviors and
mechanism of high-strength bridge steels in various environment and
multiple corrosion fatigue models have been developed based on
experimental and simulative methods [4–10]. To improve the corrosion
fatigue life of high-strength steel, several approaches have been applied,
including coating and cathodic protection [11–13]. However, it is
essential to develop high performance steels with high stress corrosion
modification and microstructure tailoring. Wu et al. have tried to
improve the SCC resistance of high-strength low-alloy steels by micro­
alloying with Nb and Sb, and have obtained considerably beneficial
effect in this way [14]. Microstructure is also considered to have sig­
nificant influence on SCC and corrosion fatigue resistance [15–20].
Varied microstructures can be obtained by different manufacturing
methods and heat treatment. Jia et al. indicated that manufacturing
process had a significant effect on SCC sensitivity of high-strength
low-alloy steels. The steel produced by TMCP had higher SCC sensi­
tivity than that prepared by direct quenching and quenching &
tempering [17]. Our previous work also revealed that hot rolling pa­
rameters had evident influence on microstructure evolution and resul­
tant SCC resistance [21]. Some other work also studied the effect of
microstructural features on corrosion fatigue behavior [22–26]. Victor
revealed the corrosion fatigue crack growth rate of TMCP-prepared
steels was lower than normalized steels [24].
690 MPa grade high-strength bridge steels have been recently
developed in China through TMCP or quenching & tempering process.
To achieve a good combination of strength and toughness, TMCP is
usually followed by tempering heat treatment or intercritical quenching
& tempering (IQT) process. However, the corrosion fatigue property of
this steels in harsh environment (i.e., coastal-industrial marine

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mahongchi@ustb.edu.cn (H. Ma).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2022.143771
Received 19 June 2022; Received in revised form 3 August 2022; Accepted 5 August 2022
Available online 10 August 2022
0921-5093/© 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
J. Wang et al.
environment) is unknown and the influence of heat treatment is not
clear. This work aims to comparatively explore the corrosion fatigue
behavior and property of Q690 high-strength bridge steels produced by
two manufacturing methods, which could offer some guidance for the
optimization of processing and heat treatment.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Materials preparation
The studied materials are two types of Q690qE high-strength bridge
steels produced by two different manufacturing process. A cast slab was
hot-rolled to steel plates of 32 mm by multi-pass rolling through TMCP.
The slab of 260 mm thickness was homogenized at 1200 ◦ C for 4 h, then
hot-rolled by two rolling steps. The first stage was rolled to 96 mm at the
recrystallization region ranging from the initial rolling temperature of
1150 ◦ C to the finish rolling temperature of 1020 ◦ C, and the reduction
rate was approximately 63%. The second stage was rolled at the non-
recrystallization region from 800 ◦ C to a finish rolling temperature of
820 ◦ C, with the steel plate rolled to a final thickness of 32 mm. Then the
steel was water-cooled to approximately 400 ◦ C to ensure bainitic
transformation according to measured CCT curve. Since the cooling rate
was approximately 10–15 ◦ C/s with the finish cooling temperature
above Ms point, the steel was favorably transformed into bainite rather
than martensite. Then it was air-cooled to ambient temperature, fol­
lowed by two kinds of heat treatment. One type of Q690qE steel was
prepared by tempering at 400 ◦ C for 100min, named Q1; another was
obtained by IQT process, designated as Q2. It was reheated at 800 ◦ C for
Fig. 1. Schematic of experimental setup for corrosion fatigue test and dimension of the fatigue specimens.
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Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771
40min, then water-quenched to 400 ◦ C at a cooling rate of 10–15 ◦ C/s to
obtain a mixed microstructure of ferrite and granular bainite. Then it
was tempered at 400 ◦ C for 60min. The chemical compositions (wt%) of
the steel is as follows: 0.08% C, 0.25% Si, 1.55% Mn, 0.009% P, 0.001%
S, 0.45% Cr, 0.49% Ni, 0.21% Cu, 0.28% Mo, 0.04% Nb, 0.003% V,
0.016% Ti, 0.038%Al, 0.0011% Ca and Fe balance. The microstructures
of Q1 and Q2 were observed by optical microscope and SEM after fine
polishing and etching with 4% nital solution. The tensile mechanical
properties were tested according to national standard GB/T 228.1–2010
[27] with the specimen dimension shown in Fig. 3. The specimens were
sampled on top surface of the steel plate along rolling direction. The
tensile strength offers a reference for the applied stress in corrosion fa­
tigue tests.
2.2. Corrosion fatigue testing
The corrosion fatigue tests were carried out on an MTS Landmark
370 fatigue testing machine according to ASTM E466-2007 [28]⟪Stan­
dard Practice for Conducting Force Controlled Constant Amplitude Axial
Fatigue Tests of Metallic Materials⟫. The experimental set-up and
specimens used in this work are shown in Fig. 1. The fatigue specimens
were smooth flat-plate specimens with a dimension of 160 mm × 16 mm
× 2 mm. They were all cut from the top surface of the steel plate along
rolling direction and were progressively abraded in the longitudinal
direction by emery papers up to 2000#, degreased in dehydrated
ethanol by ultrasonic sound, dried in air, and then sealed in a plastic
chamber using flexible silica gel. After the specimen was installed in the
fatigue machine, an atomizer was used to pump moisture into the
J. Wang et al.
chamber to form a thin electrolyte on the specimen surface. The solution
in the atomizer was 3.5% NaCl +0.01 mol/L NaHSO3 with pH approx­
imately 3.8 to simulate coastal-industrial marine environment. The
corrosion fatigue tests were conducted at ambient temperature (25 ±
2 ◦ C) with peak stress level ranging from 0.6σs ~ 1.0σs (σs = 830 MPa or
740 MPa for Q1 and Q2 respectively). The loading waveform was a si­
nusoidal wave with stress ratio of 0.5 and frequency of 1 Hz. Corrosion
fatigue S–N curves were obtained to reveal the corrosion fatigue prop­
erty variation of these two steels with distinct microstructures. After
failure, the fractures were cut off and cleaned in an acid solution (500
mL 30–38% hydrochloride acid + 500 mL deionized water + 10 g
hexamethylenetetramine) with an ultrasonic cleaner, followed by
cleaning with alcohol and drying for observation. The lateral and
cross-sectional morphologies of the fracture were examined using SEM.
To reveal the corrosion fatigue initiation mechanism, a specimen was
tested at a peak stress of 0.8σs (664 MPa) for 24 h with the same method,
and the corrosion attack morphology was observed using SEM after
removing the corrosion products.
2.3. EBSD characterization
To reveal the effect of microstructure on corrosion fatigue behavior
and property, the microstructural feature of these two steels was char­
acterized by Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD). A specimen with
10 mm × 10 mm × 2 mm was progressively abraded by emery papers to
2000 grit and then polished with 1.0 μm diamond polishing suspension.
Electropolishing was subsequently implemented at 450 mA/cm2 in the
electrolyte with 7% perchloric acid and 93% ethanol for 1 min. Orien­
tation imaging microscopy was carried out using FEI Quanta 650 FEG
with the HKL Channel 5 collection system. EBSD mapping was per­
formed using a step size of 0.2 μm and an accelerating voltage of 20 kV.
2.4. SKPFM measurement
To reveal the electrochemical mechanism of corrosion fatigue
Fig. 2. The optical and SEM image of the microstructure of Q1 (a–b) and Q2 steel (c–d).
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Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771
initiation, the Volta potential distribution of Q1 and Q2 steel was
measured by Scanning Kelvin probe force microscopy (SKPFM). A
sample of 10 × 10 × 2 mm was prepared by polishing with 1.0 μm
diamond polishing paste and fine polish with 50 nm SiO2polishing
suspension. The surface topography and potential mapping was per­
formed in dual-scan mode using Pt–Ir coated conductive silicon nitride
tip (15 nm) supplied by Bruker. The height profile and Volta potential
were scanned in air at ambient temperature with a pixel resolution of
512 × 512 and a scan rate of 1 Hz.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Microstructure characterization and mechanical properties
The optical and SEM image of the microstructure of Q1 and Q2 steel
are shown in Fig. 2. It shows the microstructure of Q1 steel is mainly lath
bainite (LB) with a small amount of granular bainite (GB). A lot of M/A
constituents with 0.5~2 μm were dispersively distributed within bai­
nitic matrix. The Q2 steel exhibits a dual-phase microstructure
composed of quasi-polygonal ferrite and granular bainite. The original
hot-rolled plate was expected to undergo partial austenization during
heating at 800 ◦ C and the reverted austenite was transformed into
granular bainite upon water quenching. Then it was evolved into
tempered bainite with M/A constituents partially decomposed into
carbides or cementite during tempering process.
Given that the applied stress in corrosion fatigue tests were loaded
relative to the yield strength of steel, the tensile mechanical properties of
Q1 and Q2 steel were measured prior to corrosion fatigue tests. The
representative tensile stress-strain curves of these two steels and spec­
imen dimension are shown in Fig. 3. The calculated mechanical pa­
rameters are listed as Table 1. It shows the proof yield strength (σ0.2) of
Q1 and Q2 steel reaches 830 MPa (designated as σs1) and 740 MPa
(designated as σs2), respectively. A lot of work have investigated the
deformation behavior of polygonal ferrite-bainite dual phase steels
[29–31]. The slightly lower yield strength of Q2 steel is attributed to the
J. Wang et al.
Fig. 3. Engineering stress-strain curves of two Q690qE steels.
Table 1
Mechanical properties of Q1 and Q2 steels.
σ0.2 (MPa) σb (MPa) σ0.2/σb Elongation
Q1 830 904 0.92 6.1%
Q2 740 964 0.77 10.4%
presence of softer phase polygonal ferrite. The proofed yield strength of
740 MPa actually corresponds to the yield point of polygonal ferrite.
Generally, the polygonal ferrite has a low yield strength no more than
600Ma; however, the obtained high yield strength of 740 MPa in this
work was probably contributed by precipitation strengthening effect of
nanosized (TiNb)C and Cu particles introduced by TMCP and tempering
process [3].
The Q1 steel has a considerably higher yield strength probably
because of lath bainitic transformation and precipitation strengthening
effect during TMCP [32–34]. However, it has a poor ductility with the
elongation merely 6.1%, whereas the Q2 steel has a much better
strain-hardening capacity, resulting in both elongation and tensile
strength of Q2 steel are higher than that of Q1 steel. It implies that the
dual-phase microstructure produced by IQT process has a good combi­
nation of strength and toughness because of compatible deformation
between these two phases indicated by previous work [29–31]. Mean­
while, the ratio of yield strength to tensile strength can be greatly
declined, which is beneficial to the bridge application.
3.2. EBSD analysis
To reveal the difference of mechanical property and corrosion fa­
tigue behavior between these two steels, the crystallographic orientation
and grain boundary characters were analyzed using EBSD. Fig. 4 shows
the EBSD pattern of the original sample of Q1 and Q2 steel. The band
contrast reflects the dislocation density in steel. The darker area in­
dicates higher dislocation density. The band contrast of Q1 steel presents
much darker than that of Q2 in the entire area, implying Q1 steel has a
much higher dislocation density compared to Q2 steel. It is probably
because the bainitic transformation during TMCP produced large
amounts of dislocations in the matrix. It can be seen the lath bainite
grew in different direction with different crystallographic orientation
(Fig. 4(c)). The prior austenite grains were segmented into fine grains
with high density of dislocations and low-angle grain boundaries (Fig. 4
(e)). The band contrast of Q2 steel is much lighter especially for the
ferrite grains. It shows the grains are mostly equiaxed with fine grains.
This is related to the intercritical quenching & tempering (IQT) process.
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Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771
The Q2 steel was reheated at 800 ◦ C which is between Ac1 and Ac3. Fine
reversed austenite was formed duo to partial austenization during
reheating stage and then transformed into islands of bainite. The un­
dissolved phase was transformed into polygonal ferrite due to upper
diffusion of carbon atoms from ferrite to reversed austenite during
heating stage. The internal stress/strain and dislocation density were
greatly reduced due to diffusion of carbon and annihilation of disloca­
tions. Nevertheless, local strain was retained in the bainitic islands
probably due to phase transformation (Fig. 5).
The local misorientation, as reflected by the kernel average misori­
entation (KAM), was analyzed based on EBSD data. The value of KAM
reveals the local strain level related to the dislocation density in steel.
Higher KAM value means higher local strain or dislocation density. It
can be seen from Fig. 5(a)–(c) that the KAM value of Q1 steel is evidently
higher than that of Q2 steel, which is consistent with band contrast in
Fig. 4. This is related to the different heat treatment for them. High local
strain and dislocation density were introduced in Q1 steel during
quenching process and phase transformation. The subsequent tempering
treatment at 400 ◦ C could not completely eliminate the local strain and
dislocations. However, the IQT process could produce a certain amount
of polygonal ferrite within Q2 steel with the local strain and dislocation
density considerably reduced. Meanwhile, the effective grain size dis­
tribution of these two steels was calculated based on EBSD data, shown
in Fig. 5(d). It reveals both Q1 and Q2 steel have fine grain size. The
average grain size of them is 1.90 μm and 1.66 μm, respectively.
Based on EBSD analysis, the higher strain-hardening capacity of Q2
steel is mainly benefited from its finer grain size, lower local strain and
dual-phase microstructure of soft ferrite and hard bainite. The polygonal
and soft ferrite could be preferentially deformed during tension because
of excellent deformation ability. With the dislocation multiplication and
strain hardening within ferrite, the plastic deformation of bainitic
islands would be activated, resulting in alternate deformation between
ferrite and bainite. The fine and evenly distributed ferrite are helpful for
the compatible deformation between them, which could greatly improve
the ductility and strain-hardening ability of Q2 steel (Fig. 3).
3.3. Corrosion fatigue S–N curves
Fig. 6 shows the corrosion fatigue S–N curves of Q1 and Q2 steel in
simulated coastal-industrial marine environment, which are in com­
parison with previous work for completely quenched and tempered
E690 steel [35]. The logarithm of corrosion fatigue life (logN) are almost
linearly reduced with the increase of stress level, which is in accordance
with empirical equation [7]. It can be seen the corrosion fatigue prop­
erty of Q1 steel is moderately superior to Q2 steel with respect to total
corrosion fatigue life. The reason is probably associated with their mi­
crostructures. As revealed by EBSD in Fig. 4, the Q1 steel has high
density of low-angle grain boundaries and fine bainitic lath, which could
act as effective barriers to crack propagation [21]. In addition, the S–N
curves of both steels are on the right side of E690 steel, implying their
superior corrosion fatigue properties to that of E690 steel. For instance,
the corrosion fatigue life of Q1 steel at peak stress of 498 MPa is
1044346 cycles, which is approximately 75% higher than that of E690
steel (596925 cycles).
According to empirical equation of S–N curve, a linear fitting was
applied for logN versus peak stress (σmax) and shown as Fig. 6. The
determination coefficient of the fitting is 0.991 and 0.983, implying a
good linear relationship. Based on the linear fitting, the corrosion fa­
tigue life prediction equations can be described as:
Q1 steel: logN = − 1.99 × 10− 3σmax+7.00
Q2 steel:logN = − 1.61 × 10− 3σmax+6.66
J. Wang et al. Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771

Fig. 4. Band contrast (a)(b), IPF map (c)(d) and grain boundary character distribution of these two Q690qE steels. (a)(c)(e) correspond to Q1 while (b)(d)(f)
correspond to Q2. Black lines denote high-angle grain boundaries whereas red lines denote low-angle ones. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this
figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)

3.4. Fractographic observation
Fig. 7 shows the corrosion fatigue fracture morphologies of Q1 steel
under various peak stress level ranging from 0.6σs1 to 1.0σs1.No obvious
necking was observed for macroscopic images of the fracture under 0.6-
0.9σs1, whereas the fracture under 1.0σs1 exhibited some degree of
necking. It implied the fracture occurred without plastic deformation
under elastic stress level. Corrosion fatigue cracks were initiated from
multiple sites denoted as white arrows. Multiple microcracks nucleated
at the edge of specimen and formed a fan-shaped area. The main crack
propagation area was circled as white dotted line (Fig. 7(a)). The steady
crack propagation area was gradually reduced with the increase of stress
level because of the decline of critical crack size before rapid rupture.
The microscopic images of steady crack propagation area exhibited
transgranular cracking with river-like pattern and numerous crack
ridges (denoted with yellow allows) which are mostly perpendicular to
the crack propagation direction. The crack ridges were generally caused
by the cyclic loading and deflection of crack tip. The corrosion fatigue
cracks did not propagate along grain boundary or other microstructural
features. It was associated with its manufacturing process and micro­
structure. The Q1 steel was produced by TMCP and tempering which
resulted in fine lath/granular bainite without obvious prior austenite
grain boundaries as E690 steel [35]. Therefore, there was no preferred
cracking path during crack propagation and the crack tip extended

5
J. Wang et al.
Fig. 5. Local misorientation analysis (a)(b), KAM value (c) and effective grain size distribution of Q1 and Q2 steel. (a)(b) denote Q1 and Q2 respectively.
Fig. 6. The corrosion fatigue S–N curves and fitting lines of Q1 and Q2 bridge
steels in simulated coastal-industrial marine environment.
almost straightforward to form a smooth and transgranular fracture.
The lateral fracture morphologies under different peak stress levels
are shown in Fig. 8. Numerous microcracks were initiated on specimen
surface under different stress levels, indicating the Q1 steel was sus­
ceptible to corrosion fatigue initiation in this environment. Macroscopic
stepwise cracks were formed with the coalescence of microcracks. No
obvious corrosion pits were observed on specimen surface indicating the
microcracks were not caused by corrosion pits. The microcracks initia­
tion mechanism will be discussed in section 4.
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Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771
Fig. 9 shows the cross-sectional morphologies of corrosion fatigue
fracture of Q1 steel at peak stress of 0.8σs1. It can be seen a lot of sec­
ondary microcracks were initiated on specimen surface and tended to
propagate transgranularly. The secondary cracks followed a zigzag
pattern at microscopic scale, indicating large crack propagation resis­
tance. The magnified image of the crack tip area (Fig. 9(b)) revealed the
crack tip preferred to propagate along the interface of M/A constituents
and matrix probably due to local stress concentration. Many literatures
have demonstrated that local stress/strain concentration is usually
present at the interface of M/A constituents and steel matrix because of
microhardness discrepancy between them [36–38]. The local stress/­
strain concentration at the interface could be superimposed on the
high-strained zone in front of the crack tip, resulting in deflection of the
crack tip to the interface.
To reveal the cracking path and microstructure evolution after
corrosion fatigue fracture, EBSD measurement was conducted along a
secondary microcrack on specimen surface of Q1 steel fractured at peak
stress of 0.6σs1 (Fig. 10). It shows the cracking mode was mainly
transgranular with a zigzag pattern. It was evident that the overall KAM
value after fatigue loading was much higher compared to the original
one. This implies that dislocation multiplication and slipping was acti­
vated by cyclic loading even under low peak stress level of 0.6σs1.As a
result, the average strain and dislocation density was greatly increased
especially at some local sites. The red spots in Fig. 10(b) represent
highly-strained areas which probably correspond to M/A constituents or
cementite. It is suggested the M/A constituents and cementite are hard
phase in steel and they could trigger local stress/strain concentration
under tensile stress [38,39]. Then they are prone to induce corrosion
fatigue initiation under synergistic effect of localized corrosion and
stress concentration. This could explain why numerous corrosion fatigue
microcracks were initiated even under low stress level (Fig. 8). In
J. Wang et al.
Fig. 7. Corrosion fatigue fracture morphologies of Q1 steel in simulated marine
environment under peak stress of (a)0.6σs1, (b) 0.8σs1, (c) 0.9σs1, (d) 1.0σs1.
addition, the local KAM value along the crack path was not elevated over
other regions, indicating that corrosion and hydrogen played a domi­
nant role in crack propagation and there was no apparent plastic
deformation along the crack path.
The corrosion fatigue fracture morphologies of Q2 steel are shown in
Fig. 11. Similar to Q1 steel, the fractures under various stress levels
mainly exhibited transgranular images with multiple crack initiation
sites. The steady crack propagation area of the main crack was relatively
larger under lower stress levels (0.8σs2 and 0.9σs2) and the fractures
exhibited some intergranular features (Fig. 11(a-b)). The steady crack
propagation zone was circled by white dotted line. With the growth of
steady crack propagation, the fracture exhibited obvious necking at the
edge of the specimen and the steady crack was transitioned to final rapid
rupture. Two voids with diameters of 30–50 μm were found on the
fracture surface (Fig. 11(b)). They were probably formed due to the
dissolution or fall-off of inclusions. The corrosion fatigue crack was
initially nucleated at the lower plane and then deflected to the upper
plane, and finally pass through the inclusions. It implies the large size
inclusion in the subsurface may promote the crack propagation and are
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Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771
harmful to the corrosion fatigue property.
Fig. 12 exhibits the corrosion fatigue lateral morphologies of Q2
steel. It is evident that there are much less microcracks near the fracture
compared with Q1 steel. The microcracks were mostly blunt and opened
up near the fracture due to severe plastic deformation, which implied a
good ductility of Q2 steel. In contrast with the brittle fracture of Q1 steel,
the Q2 steel was fractured with evident necking. It was speculated that
with the growth of the main crack, the actual stress applied on the
remaining section could be much higher than the nominal applied stress.
When the actual stress greatly exceeded the yield strength, the
remaining section would be plasticly deformed and resulted in ductile
fracture with evident necking. The secondary microcracks were mostly
accompanied with small corrosion pits, implying localized corrosion
played an important role in the corrosion fatigue initiation [26].
To analyze the corrosion fatigue crack propagation features, the
cross-sectional images of secondary microcracks were observed and
shown in Fig. 13. It is evident that much less secondary cracks can be
observed for Q2 steel. However, the microcracks were narrow and sharp
with crack length over 200 μm. The secondary microcracks tended to
propagate along the interface of ferrite and granular bainite at lower
stress level, mainly exhibiting intergranular cracking mode (Fig. 13(a)).
It can be ascribed to the microhardness and microgalvanic corrosion
between these two phases, which would be further discussed afterward.
In comparison, the cracking mode was mainly transgranular at higher
peak stress of 1.1σs2 (Fig. 13(b)). When the peak stress exceeded yield
strength, the crack growth rate as well as the stress intensity factor at the
crack tip was much higher. As a result, the corrosion of the crack tip was
not so sufficient during the propagation process that the stress intensity
factor at the crack tip played a dominant role in the cracking process and
resulted in transgranular cracking [40].
EBSD was conducted on the secondary microcrack tip area of Fig. 13
(a) and shown as Fig. 14. An intergranular cracking mode was clearly
depicted from BC and IPF graph. The phase map revealed there was a
considerable fraction of retained austenite (denoted by red phase) in Q2
steel and they were mostly retained in the crack because of insolubility.
It has been demonstrated in many literatures that retained austenite are
beneficial for the ductility of high-strength steels [41–43]. Thus, the
retained austenite introduced by IQT process probably contributed to
the excellent ductility of Q2 steel. Apart from a slight increase of KAM
value at the crack tip, there was no evident increase in other areas,
indicating that local plastic strain did not occur under peak stress of
0.8σs2. It was probably because that there was slight hardness variation
between the ferrite and tempered bainite in Q2 steel. Therefore, the
applied elastic stress did not trigger local stress concentration or plastic
strain within the steel. That could probably explain why there were
much less secondary microcracks on the lateral surface of Q2 steel.
3.5. Corrosion fatigue initiation behavior
To explore the corrosion fatigue initiation behavior and mechanism
of these two steels, corrosion fatigue tests were conducted under peak
stress of 0.8σs1 (664 MPa) for 24 h. Fig. 15 shows the corrosion fatigue
images after testing for 24 h. A lot of microcracks were observed on
sample surface for both of them. Much more cracks with larger size were
initiated on Q1 steel in comparison with Q2 steel, indicating that Q1
steel was prone to corrosion fatigue initiation in this environment,
which was consistent with the fracture lateral morphologies in Fig. 8.
The dense microcracks were coalesced to stepwise longer cracks. How­
ever, the cracks were tortuous and the crack tip was blunt, implying the
cracks propagation was strongly resisted by the lath bainitic
microstructure.
In contrast, there were much less microcracks on the sample surface
of Q2 steel and most of them were accompanied with small corrosion
pits (Fig. 15(c-d), implying the microcracks initiation was likely induced
by corrosion pits. It was probably related to the dual-phase micro­
structure of Q2 steel. The blocky granular bainite was relatively stable
J. Wang et al. Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771

Fig. 8. Lateral morphologies of corrosion fatigue fractures of Q1 steel under peak stress of (a) 0.6σs1, (b) 0.8σs1.

Fig. 9. Optical micrograph (a) and SEM images of cross-sectional morphologies near the corrosion fatigue fracture of Q1 steel at peak stress of 0.8σs1.

because of higher carbon and alloy elements, whereas the quasi- to preferential dissolution of ferrite, and resulted in microcracks initia­
polygonal ferrite was prone to be dissolved which was indicated tion under synergistic effect of localized corrosion and cyclic loading.
below by SKPFM. Thus, microscopic corrosion pits could be formed due The depth profile of microcracks was further analyzed by confocal laser

8
J. Wang et al.
Fig. 10. EBSD analysis of the secondary microcracks on specimen surface of Q1 steel fractured at peak stress of 0.6σs. (a) IPF graph, (b) KAM distribution, (c) KAM
value of the original sample, (d) KAM distribution of the fracture in comparison with the original one.
scanning microscope and shown in Fig. 16. It revealed the depth of
corrosion fatigue microcracks of these two steels were comparable,
ranging from 5–8 μm.
To reveal the corrosion fatigue initiation mechanism, the surface
topography and Volta potential of the two microstructures were
measured by SKPFM, shown in Fig. 17. Figure (a) and (b) show the
topography and corresponding Volta potential of Q1 steel respectively.
The bright spots correspond to M/A constituents which are prominent
after fine polishing due to higher micro-hardness. Fig. 17(b) reveals that
the Volta potential of M/A constituents is approximately 140 mV higher
than that of matrix (Fig. 17(c)), which is basically consistent with pre­
vious work [44]. The potential variation is slightly lower than that of
Ref. [44] probably due to the lower carbon and alloy elements of base
metal. The topography of Q2 steel presents profile of quasi-polygonal
ferrite and bainite. The bainite is relatively harder compared to ferrite
and exhibits bright colour in topography graph. The corresponding po­
tential of bainite is slightly higher than that of ferrite especially at the
grain boundaries. The potential variation between ferrite and bainite is
approximately 100 mV according to line scanning across the two phases
(Fig. 17(f)).
4. Discussion
4.1. Corrosion fatigue initiation and propagation mechanism
The corrosion fatigue initiation mechanism for these two steels can
be proposed based on the SKPFM measurement (Fig. 17) and initial
corrosion images (Fig. 15). The Q1 steel contains numerous M/A con­
stituents and high density of dislocations. The presence of M/A
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Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771
constituents could introduce local stress/strain concentration at the
interface during fatigue loading, which was reflected from the KAM
value in Fig. 10. The M/A constituents could also trigger hydrogen-
induced microcracks due to hydrogen trapping effect. They could trap
much hydrogen around them in this acidic marine environment and
greatly reduce the binding force between M/A and matrix [45].More­
over, micro-galvanic couple could be formed between M/A constituents
and matrix with the M/A serving as cathodes in the thin electrolyte
layer. The micro-galvanic effect would accelerate anodic dissolution of
ferrite around the M/A constituents and may introduce micro-crevice at
the interface (Fig. 18(b)), which could result in microcracks initiation
under the coupling effect of localized corrosion and stress concentration
associated with local dislocation slipping [21,46]. The schematic dia­
gram of corrosion fatigue initiation and propagation mechanism is
illustrated as Fig. 18. Since the Q1 steel has a high density of hard and
brittle M/A constituents, numerous microcracks were initiated on the
specimen surface even under low stress level of 0.6σs1. The microcracks
were then coalesced to step-wise longer cracks.
In contrast, the corrosion fatigue microcracks were not prone to
initiate on Q2 steel surface, because it was composed of ferrite and
bainite which have a slight microhardness difference and without
noticeable stress concentration at the interface. As a result, much less
microcracks were initiated from some small corrosion pits. The corro­
sion pits were probably induced by the micro-galvanic corrosion effect
between the ferrite and blocky bainite. Based on the SKPFM measure­
ment, the Volta potential of ferrite is approximately 100 mV lower than
that of bainite. In addition, the volume fraction of ferrite is much lower
than bainite. In this case, micro-galvanic couple of “large cathode-small
anode” could be formed between ferrite and adjacent bainite. As a result,
J. Wang et al. Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771

Fig. 11. Corrosion fatigue fracture morphologies of Q2 steel under peak stress of (a) 0.8σs2, (b) 0.9σs2.

Fig. 12. Lateral morphologies of corrosion fatigue fractures of Q2 steel under peak stress of (a) 0.8σs2, (b) 0.9σs2.

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J. Wang et al. Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771

Fig. 13. Cross-sectional morphologies of the corrosion fatigue fractures of Q2 steel under peak stress of (a) 0.8σs2, (b)1.1σs2.

Fig. 14. EBSD analysis of the secondary crack tip in the cross-sectional area of the fracture of Q1 steel under peak stress of 0.8σs1. (a) IPF graph, (b) KAM distribution,
(c) KAM value of the original sample, (d) KAM distribution of the fracture in comparison with the original one.

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J. Wang et al. Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771

Fig. 15. Corrosion fatigue initiation images of Q1 (a–b) and Q2 steel (c–d) tested for 24 h under peak stress of 664 MPa in simulated marine environment.

Fig. 16. Corrosion fatigue initiation images and depth profile of Q1 (a) and Q2 steel (b) tested for 24 h under peak stress of 664 MP.

the ferrite would be preferentially dissolved due to micro-galvanic
corrosion and to form small corrosion pits (Fig. 15(c-d) and Fig.18(e)).
Then microcracks could initiate at the edge or bottom of the pits because
of localized corrosion and stress concentration (Fig. 18(f)). Once the
microcracks were nucleated, they would prefer to propagate along the
phase interface probably because of hardness variation and micro-
galvanic effect between these two phases. The intergranular cracking
probably contributed to the slightly lower corrosion fatigue life of Q2
dual-phase steel.

12
J. Wang et al. Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771

Fig. 17. The surface topography (a)(d) and Volta potential distribution (b)(e) of Q1 and Q2 steel measured by SKPFM. (a–c) Correspond to Q1 steel and (d–f)
correspond to Q2 steel. (c) Represents potential line scanning across M/A constituents. (f) Represents potential line scanning across ferrite and bainite.

4.2. Effect of microstructure on corrosion fatigue property
According to the above results, it can be seen the 690 MPa-grade
high-strength bridge steel has high risk of corrosion fatigue cracking in
polluted marine environment. The logN was almost linearly reduced
with the increase of stress level for both steels. Nevertheless, their
corrosion fatigue property was considerably superior to E690 steel,
which may imply the TMCP + T and IQT process could greatly improve
the corrosion fatigue property of high-strength steels compared to
completely quenching and tempering heat treatment.The variation of
corrosion fatigue property was probably related to their microstructures
produced by different processing and heat treatment. The completely
quenching and tempering heat treatment resulted in equiaxed large
grains with prior austenite grain boundaries which were prone to
intergranular corrosion and corrosion fatigue initiation [35,47,48]. The
Q1 steel produced by TMCP + T had a slightly better corrosion fatigue
property than Q2 steel prepared by IQT process, probably because of
retarding effect of fine bainitic lath on crack propagation. A lot of
research have demonstrated that the bainitic lath as well as high-angle
and low-angle grain boundaries can act as effective barriers to crack
propagation [21,49–51]. Therefore, the superior corrosion fatigue
property of TMCP-produced steel was reasonably attributed to its fine
bainitic lath and high density of high and low-angle grain boundaries.
However, due to the presence of large amount of M/A constituents and
high dislocation density, the Q1 steel produced by TMCP + T had a
relatively poor ductility and the corrosion fatigue microcracks were
prone to initiate on steel surface. It is suggested to get rid of the M/A
constituents by elevating tempering temperature to achieve a good
balance of strength-toughness and corrosion fatigue property. In
contrast, the ferrite-bainite dual phase structure introduced by IQT

13
J. Wang et al.
Fig. 18. Schematic diagram of corrosion fatigue initiation and propagation of Q1 (a–c) and Q2 steel (d–f).
could greatly enhance the ductility and reduce the yield-to-tensile ratio.
Corrosion fatigue microcracks were not prone to initiate on this steel,
but preferred to propagate intergranularly along the phase interface,
which was probably responsible for the slightly lower corrosion fatigue
life of them. As a whole, the steel produced by IQT had a better com­
bination of mechanical and corrosion fatigue properties.
5. Conclusions
The corrosion fatigue behavior and property of Q690 bridge steels
with two distinct microstructures were comparatively investigated and
the following conclusions can be drawn:
(1) The high-strength steels produced by TMCP + T or IQT had a
superior corrosion fatigue resistance compared to completely
quenched and tempered steel. Thus, TMCP is a promising tech­
nology to produce corrosion fatigue resistant steels.
(2) The steel produced by TMCP + T had a slightly better corrosion
fatigue property than that prepared by IQT probably because of
retarding effect of bainitic lath on crack propagation. The loga­
rithm of corrosion fatigue life was almost linearly reduced with
increase of peak stress for both steels.
(3) M/A constituents had a detrimental effect on corrosion fatigue
initiation due to local stress concentration and microgalvanic
effect for bainitic steel. It is suggested to get rid of the M/A
constituents by elevating tempering temperature to achieve a
good balance of strength-toughness and corrosion fatigue
property.
(4) The IQT heat treatment could greatly increase the ductility of
high-strength steel at little sacrifice of yield strength and corro­
sion fatigue property. In other words, the IQT process could offer
a good combination of mechanical and corrosion fatigue prop­
erties for high-strength bridge steel.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Jun Wang: Investigation, Result analysis, Formal analysis, Visuali­
zation, Writing – original draft, Original draft writing. Liyang Sun:
14
Materials Science & Engineering A 853 (2022) 143771
Experimental investigation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – re­
view & editing, Writing and editing. Hongchi Ma: Conceptualization,
Writing – review & editing, Editing and reviewing, Supervision, Funding
acquisition. Xuequn Cheng: Writing – review & editing, Editing and
reviewing, Supervision. Xiaogang Li: Supervision, Validation, All au­
thors participated in discussion of the results.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or conflict of interests that could have appeared to influence the
work reported in this paper.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Acknowledgements
This work is financially supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (51801011), National Science and Technology
Resources Investigation Program of China (2019FY101400), the China
Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2022M710348) and the Funda­
mental Research Funds for the Central Universities (FRF-IDRY-20-032).
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