Metal Science and Heat Treatment, Vol. 52, Nos. 11 12, March, 2011 (Russian Original Nos.

. 11 12, November December, 2010)

UDC 621.762:669.152428-194

CONCENTRATION-INHOMOGENEOUS NICKEL-MOLYBDENUM
TRIP-STEELS
A. A. Shatsov1 and I. V. Ryaposov1
Translated from Metallovedenie i Termicheskaya Obrabotka Metallov, No. 11, pp. 47 50, November, 2010.
The structure and properties of powder steels with 2 4% Ni and 0.5% Mo widely used for making machine
parts and equipment are studied. Heat treated articles from these steels have high operating properties under
complex loading conditions, i.e., under friction (including the case of presence of abrasive particles) and under
impact and alternating loads.

Key words: structure, metastable austenite, martensite, deformation, phase transformation, TRIPsteel, mechanical properties.

PK70N4M (with 4% Ni and 0.5% Mo) obtained with the use

of double pressing and sintering.

INTRODUCTION
A metastable structure can be obtained at operating temperatures in steels with high content of austenite at nickel
concentration of about 2% in the case of the use of dispersed
powders, for example, mechanically alloyed ones [1]. In alloys based on technical iron powders the concentration of
nickel should be less than 4% [2].
The possibility of obtaining low-alloy nickel-molybdenum powder steels with a low fraction of metastable austenite was first patented in [3] and then reported by S. Takajo
[4]. The mechanical properties of the steels have been raised
by increasing the proportion of the metastable component by
means of thermochemical treatment, additional compaction,
and use of partially alloyed powders [5 7]. Other methods
for fabricating powder metastable austenitic steels are connected with implementing a specified distribution of alloying
elements [8], for example, by sintering in the presence of a
liquid phase [9]. The interest in low-alloy trip-steels is explainable by their high structural strength at a relatively low
content of alloying additives. Nickel-molybdenum powder
steels are used for the production of highly loaded parts, such
as hammers, anvils, and links. Other applications of such
steels are steel copper pseudoalloys and composite materials based on them [12, 13]. Articles from powder metastable austenitic steels can compete with parts from cast iron
with metastable austenite and parts produced with the use of
ausforming (gears, links, etc.).
The aim of the present work was to study the structure
and properties of low-alloy metastable austenitic steel
1

METHODS OF STUDY
The structure of steel PK70N4M was studied by metallographic, microdurometric, microscopic x-ray spectrum, and
x-ray diffraction analyses. The strength and the ductility was
determined according to GOST 1822785, the crack resistance was determined according to GOST 25.50685 on specimens of type IV with preliminarily deposited crack, and the
impact toughness was determined for specimens with cross
section of 6 6 mm (at 40-mm distance between the rests).
The initial material was iron powder of grade
PZhR3.200.28. The alloying additives were PNK-OT4 nickel
carbonyl powder, molybdenum powder prepared by TU
49-19-10.573, and colloidal graphite preparation of grade
S-1. In order to improve the compressibility, the blend was
enriched with 0.8 wt.% zinc stearate.
The blend was mixed for 8 h in a mixer with shifted rotation axis. The first pressing was performed at 600 MPa. The
preforms were annealed for 2 h at 850C in an atmosphere of
dissociated ammonia and then pressed again at 800 MPa.
The final sintering was performed in a walking beam furnace
at 1160C for 4 h in an atmosphere of dissociated ammonia.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
After the fist pressing the specimens had a porosity of
6.60 g/cm3 (Po = 15%); after preliminary sintering and additional compaction their porosity was 7.15 g/cm3 (Po = 9%).

Perm State Engineering University, Perm, Russia (e-mail:

shatsov@pstu.ru).

558
0026-0673/11/1112-0558 2011 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.

Concentration-Inhomogeneous Nickel-Molybdenum Trip-Steels

nw2 test. For a lognormal law to be obeyed a specific value

of the criterion should be lower than the tabulated value at
significance level P (the probability with which the hypothesis may be rejected). For P = 0.2 the tabulated value of
nw2 = 0.24 [14]. The coefficients of variation of the concentration are 0.31 for nickel and 1.0 for molybdenum; the values of nw2 are 0.17 for nickel and 0.44 for molybdenum.
Consequently, the distribution of nickel does obey a
lognormal law. The distribution of molybdenum does not
obey a lognormal law, which confirms indirectly the high
value of the coefficient of variation, but this has a low effect
on the properties because the concentration of molybdenum
is not high.
The final heat treatment includes hardening from 850C
and 2-h tempering at 180C. Such heat treatment improves
markedly the mechanical properties of the steel (see Table 1).
In the heat treated state steel PK70N4M contains two
main structural components, i.e., massive martensite and retained austenite (Fig. 1b ) located primarily near pores.
The microhardness of the dark regions of the lap is
670 750 HV (martensite with a low fraction of troostite);
that of the light regions is 350 420 HV (a mixture of austenite and martensite). This high microhardness of the austenite-martensite structure seems to be a result of partial decomposition of austenite upon impression of the indenter [12].
In concentration-inhomogeneous powder steels the transformation of metastable austenite into strain martensite under loading promotes growth in the hardness (due to the
growth in the stresses required for opening of typical defects)
and in the crack resistance (due to the additionally spent energy required for structural transformations) [15]. In the steel
studied retained austenite transforms completely into strain
martensite under the action of applied stresses (Fig. 2). The
diffractograms taken from the laps give a somewhat distorted
proportion of the a- and g-phases, because the austenite decomposes partially in the process of preparation of the laps.
At the same time, an g-phase is virtually absent on the fracture surface, which leaves no doubt about realization of the
trip-effect.
Another proof of a strain-induced phase transformation
in the fracture zone was obtained in the metallographic study
of fracture surfaces (Fig. 3). Traditional etching methods
were used to determine the fracture zone. The depth of the
most etched zone, where the main processes preceding fracture develop [8, 15], fluctuated from several tens to several
hundreds microns depending on the loading rate.

50 mm

559

Fig. 1. Microstructure of steel PK70N4M after sintering (a, 320)

and after heat treatment (b ).

After sintering, the structure of the specimens is primarily represented by sorbite and troostite (Fig. 1a ). Austenite
spots with inclusions of martensite are noticeable near
pores. The porosity after the sintering is about 9%; the specific surface of the pores is 0.030 mm 1, the distance between the pores is 125 mm, the pore diameter is 12 mm. The
content of carbon in the sintered specimens is 0.80 0.65%.
Under the conditions mentioned the density and the porosity change inconsiderably in the sintering process. The
mechanical properties of the steel obtained are presented in
Table 1.
Homogenization in the sintering stage is determined by
the chemical and granulometric compositions and by the
structure of the powders. In order to give an exhaustive statistical description of the distribution of an alloying element
we should know the distribution law and the coefficient V of
variation of the concentration. As a rule, the law of distribution of elements in a steel is asymptotically lognormal [9]. In
our work we checked the distribution law in terms of the

TABLE 1. Mechanical Properties of Steel PK70N4M after Sintering and after Heat Treatment
Treatment

Sintering
Hardening + tempering

Hardness

sr , MPa

d, %

88 HRB
50 HRC

590
950

2.0
0.5

KC, kJ/m2 KIc , MN/m3/2

200
120

35
38

r, g/cm3

Po, %

7.15
7.15

9.0
9.0

560

A. A. Shatsov and I. V. Ryaposov

I

49

2q, deg

49

55

Fig. 3. Microstructure of steel PK70N4M near a fractured zone,

320.

2q, deg

55

Fig. 2. Diffractograms of steel PK70N4M (I is the intensity of the

radiation): a) lap; b ) fracture.

The contribution of the austenite-to-martensite transformation on the fracture surface into the growth in the crack resistance KIc can be evaluated analytically from the equation [8]:
KIc =

( K Ic ) 2 +

Wtr f Eh
1- n 2

where Wtr is the specific work of the phase transformation

[for low-alloy steels Wtr @ 1.7 kJ/(g-atom)], E is Youngs
modulus, n is Poissons coefficient, f is the volume fraction
of the phase transformation, h is the thickness of the layer,
and K Ic is the value of KIc in the absence of phase transformations.
Evaluation with the help of this equation shows that the
crack resistance of low-alloy steels can be increased by more
than a factor of 1.5 only due to the trip-effect.
We know of models explaining the growth of the
strength parameters of powder trip-steels by increase in the
failure stress in bodies with defects upon implementation of
strain-induced g a transformation [15]. An equivalent approach [16] associates the growth in the strength with increase in the compressive stresses at the tip of a defect during
formation of martensite.
Loading causes redistribution of the alloying elements in
the fracture zone [8, 15]. In the climatic temperature range
only two mechanisms of accelerated diffusion in a stress
field are possible, namely, pushing-out of the element with
higher atomic volume and displacement of atoms of the alloying elements in the dislocation center [17]. The elevated

concentration of impurity atoms in steels based on the powder of grade PZhR 3.200.28 results in localization of stresses,
which decreases, in its turn, the length of the strained region
and decelerates the motion of dislocations. This seems to be
one of the causes of lower mechanical properties as compared to bidisperse power trip-steels [8, 15]. Another cause is
the worse concentration homogeneity. It manifests itself in
the fact that the strain-induced g a transformation requires higher deformation (due to the presence of regions
with elevated concentration of alloying element), and therefore the thickness of the zone with phase transformation decreases as compared to steels with high content of additives
of carbonyl powders.
CONCLUSIONS
1. An approach is suggested for fabricating parts from
powder low-alloy metastable austenitic steels.
2. Elevation of mechanical properties of concentrationinhomogeneous trip-steels as compared to commercial powder steels is a result of phase transformations on the fracture
surface upon loading.
3. The mechanical properties of concentration-inhomogeneous metastable austenitic steels based on domestic powder iron are not inferior to those of traditional low-alloy
steels, which makes these steels suitable for the production
of loaded parts.
REFERENCES
1. V. N. Antsiferov, S. N. Bobrova, and A. A. Shatsov, Structure
and properties of mechanically alloyed steels PK50N2M,
Poroshk. Metall., No. 3/4, 31 35 (1998).
2. A. A. Shatsov and M. G. Latypov, The role of nickel and carbon in concentration-inhomogeneous trip-steels, Metalloved.
Term. Obrab. Met., No. 6, 34 36 (2001).
3. Jr. Jandeska and F. William, Iron Powder Article Having Improved Toughness, US Pat. No. 4618473, Publ. 1989.
4. S. Takajo, Obtaining high strength steel powder, MRP, No. 7/8,
33 (1991).
5. H. Masazum, M. Naok, and H. Tadatoshi, Development of
ultrahigh strength sintered steel, in: Adv. Powder Met. and
Part. Mater, Proc. Power Met. World Congr. (21 26 June,

Concentration-Inhomogeneous Nickel-Molybdenum Trip-Steels

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

1992, San Francisco, Calf), New York: Princeton (1992), Vol. 5.

pp. 215 226.
L. Caroline, E. Uif, and E. Per, Sintered high strength materials, in: Adv. Proc. Powder Met. and Part. Mater., Proc. Power
Met. World Congr. (21 26 June, 1992, San Francisco, Calif.),
New York: Princeton (1992), Vol. 5. pp. 107 114.
O. Furukimi, K. Yano, and S. Takajo, Ultrahigh strength ferrous sintered components, Int. J. Powder Met., 27(4), 331 337
(1991).
M. G. Latypov and A. A. Shatsov, Special features of trip-effect in powder concentration-inhomogeneous steels with low
nickel content, Metalloved. Term. Obrab. Met., No. 8, 15 19
(1997).
V. N. Antsiferov, N. N. Maslennikov, A. A. Shatsov, and
T. V. Smyshlyaeva, Powder steel with structure of metastable
austenite, Poroshk. Metall., No. 3/4, 42 47 (1994).
A. A. Shatsov, Special features of structure of steel-copper
metastable pseudoalloys, Metalloved. Term. Obrab. Met.,
No. 6, 21 24 (2007).
M. G. Latypov, E. V. Cherepakhin, and A. A. Shatsov, Structure and properties of steel-copper metastable pseudoalloys,
Perspekt. Mater., No. 2, 63 67 (2008).

561

12. M. G. Latypov, S. M. Katanov, E. V. Cherepakhin, and A. A.

Shatsov, Interaction between metastable copper-steel pseudoalloy and hard alloy, Metalloved. Term. Obrab. Met., No. 7,
22 27 (2009).
13. S. M. Katanov and A. A. Shatsov, Metastable steel copper
pseudoalloys with hard-alloy strengthening, Perspekt. Mater,
Special Issue 6, Functional nanomaterials and high-purity
substances, Part 2, 308 311 (2008).
14. S. L. Akhnazarova and V. V. Kafarov, Optimization of Experiment in Chemistry and Chemical Technology [in Russian],
Vysshaya Shkola, Moscow (1978), 319 p.
15. V. N. Antsiferov, M. G. Litvinov, and A. A. Shatsov, Highstrength crack-resistant concentration-inhomogeneous powder
nickel steels, Metalloved. Term. Obrab. Met., No. 11, 28 32
(1999).
16. M. A. Filippov, V. S. Litvinov, and Yu. R. Nemirovskii, Steels
with Metastable Austenite [in Russian], Metallurgiya, Moscow
(1988).
17. S. N. Peshcherenko, Mutual Diffusion in Structurally Inhomogeneous Materials Obtained by the Method of Powder Metallurgy, Authors Abstract of Doctorals Thesis [in Russian], PGU,
Perm (1998).