Results in Physics 15 (2019) 102813

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Results in Physics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rinp

Investigation on the hot ductility of Q235 low-carbon steel with boron T

addition
⁎
Jixuan Zhaoa, Hangyu Zhua,b, , Wei Wangb, Lanqing Wangc, Weisheng Wanga
a
The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430081, China
b
Key Laboratory for Ferrous Metallurgy and Resources Utilization of Ministry of Education, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430081, China
c
Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory for New Processes of Ironmaking and Steelmaking, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430081, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: We tested the mechanical properties of B-containing steel at 600–1300 °C using Gleeble 1500, and the hot
Hot ductility ductility was investigated according to the reduction in area (RA). The fractured specimens were examined using
Boron steel scanning electron microscopy. The results indicate that boron strongly influences the hot ductility of B-con-
Low carbon steel taining steel in comparison with B-free Q235 steel. Boron could expand the low temperature embrittlement
Gleeble1500 simulator
range from 750–850 °C to 700–1000 °C, and lead to a worse hot ductility at 1150 °C, related to its re-melting
property. The reduction in area is as low as 18% at 1300 °C, and the high temperature embrittlement zone is
inevitable given the existence of residual solute phase between dendrites.

Introduction for ferrite, reducing the amount of ferrite at the grain boundaries to
improve the ductility.
The addition of a small amount of boron remarkably increases the Cool rate is particularly important for optimizing boron’s ductility
hardenability of low-carbon steel [1–3]. The optimum B content for improvement. The hot ductility of boron-containing steel was sensitive
maximizing the hardenability effect in steel is between about 10 and to a cooling rate of 1–20 °C/s, and the increased cooling rate causes
30 ppm; the addition of more than this optimum B content degrades the deepening and widening of the ductility trough in boron-containing
hardenability effect of B [4], possibly because the excess B atoms at the steel [11]. During the continuous casting process, the slab surface
austenite grain boundaries precipitate as M23(C,B)6 borocarbide, which containing boron easily cracks at low temperature. Wolf [12] found that
create preferential nucleation sites for the austenite-to-ferrite transfor- severe solidification cracking appears with the boron content higher
mation. than 0.01%. Suzuki et al. [13] found that adding 0.002 wt% boron to
The mechanism through which boron improves the hot ductility is vanadium- and titanium-containing steel would seriously increase the
not definitely known. The most likely explanation is that boron segre- cracking tendency, leading to poor plasticity.
gates readily to the grain boundaries and reduces the grain boundary In our previous study [14], we discussed the relationship between
sliding to improve the creep ductility [5]. Other researchers found that crack generation and re-melting behaviours, and a liquid phase was
boron prevents the formation of ferrite at the austenite grain bound- observed in the cooling process. However, the high temperature me-
aries leading to the homogeneous precipitation of austenite phase in the chanical property was not discussed further. Thus, in the present study,
matrix [6–9]. we studied the effect of boron addition on the hot ductility of low
Song [10] investigated the effect of boron on the hot ductility of carbon steel at different temperatures.
2.25Cr1Mo steel at 700–1000 °C. The ductility trough shallows and the
hot brittle range narrows with increasing boron content in the matrix. Experimental procedure
Loprez-Chipres et al. [6] examined the hot ductility of boron micro-
alloyed steel with boron content between 29 and 105 ppm. The results The boron content of the investigated steel was 0.0012 wt%,
revealed an improvement in the hot ductility of steel with increasing 0.145 wt% C, 0.573 wt% Mn, 0.196 wt% Si, 0.005 wt% S, 0.018 wt% P,
boron content. They suggested that the coarse precipitation of and 0.01 wt% Als. Tensile samples with a diameter of 10 mm and length
Fe23(BC)6 observed in the matrix provides preferential nucleation sites of 120 mm were machined from steel slab parallel to the rolling

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Zhu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rinp.2019.102813
Received 30 October 2019; Received in revised form 13 November 2019; Accepted 13 November 2019
Available online 15 November 2019
2211-3797/ © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
J. Zhao, et al. Results in Physics 15 (2019) 102813

direction. High-temperature tensile tests were conducted using the

Gleeble1500 simulator, and the hot ductility of the samples was eval-
uated according to the reduction in area (RA). Reduction in area (φ )
was calculated using
A0 − A1
φ=
A0 (1)

where A0 is the original area of the cross-section of the specimen and A1

is the minimum cross-sectional area of fracture surface after tensile
fracture of specimen.
As shown in Fig. 1, the samples were heated to 1200 °C and held for
3 min to dissolve all precipitates, and then cooled to the test tem-
perature (600–1200 °C) at 3 °C/s and maintained for 5 min. Three
sample were heated to 1250, 1300, and 1350 °C directly and then held
for 5 min, aiming to avoid the re-melting of specimens at high tem-
Fig. 1. The heat treatment procedure. perature. Finally, the samples were deformed until failure at a strain
rate of 2.5 × 10−3 s−1. The fractured specimens were examined using
scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

Results and discussion

Fig. 2. Appearance of tensile specimen heated at 1350 °C for 5 min.
As the sample was heated to 1350 °C, the thermocouple fell off and
the tensile test failed due to the formation of liquid phase and the

Fig. 3. Stress–strain relationships according to temperature.

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J. Zhao, et al. Results in Physics 15 (2019) 102813

Fig. 4. Fracture morphology of tensile specimens at 600–1300 °C.

Fig. 5. SEM fractographs for the specimens tensile tested at 600–1300 °C.

outflow of liquid metal. According to Fe-B binary phase diagram, a increase in temperature. The yield strength decreases from 45.34 MPa
metatectic reaction will occur at 1385 °C, and which leads to a trans- at 650 °C to 13.74 MPa at 1300 °C. The higher the temperature, the
formation from δ ferrite phase into γ austenite and liquid phase during lower the strength index of the sample. The yield strength increased
cooling process. The appearance characteristics of tensile specimen from 45.34 to 63.65 MPa in the temperature range of 650–750 °C, with
heated at 1350 °C are shown in Fig. 2. a maximum increase of about 18 Mpa. In the temperature range of
Fig. 3 shows the stress–strain changes at different test temperatures. 750–1300 °C, the yield strength gradually decreases with the increase in
The stress increases rapidly and uniform and non-uniform plastic de- temperature.
formation occur at different test temperatures. The high-temperature The fracture surfaces of boron-containing steel fractured at
yield strength and tensile strength all show a downward trend with the 600–1300 °C, as shown in Figs. 4 and 5. Ductile fracture occurs at 600

3
J. Zhao, et al. Results in Physics 15 (2019) 102813

of a residual solute phase between dendrites. The low-temperature

embrittlement range of B-free Q235 steel is 750–850 °C; however, the
temperature range was expanded to 700–1000 °C for the steel in this
study. The hot ductility is poor at this temperature range, possibly due
to the formation of BN and Fe23(B,C)6 at the austenite grain boundaries.
Compared with B-free Q235 steel, as shown in Fig. 6, the B-containing
steel had worse hot ductility at 1150 °C. The re-melting characteristics
of B-containing steel may be the reason for this property according to
the Fe–B phase diagram, and liquid phase was found in fractographs as
shown in Fig. 5. The formation of a low melting point liquid phase
greatly reduced the hot ductility of the investigated steel.

Conclusion

In summary, boron addition was found to significantly affect the hot

ductility through the comparative study of Q235 steel. Boron expands
the low temperature embrittlement range from 750–850 °C to
700–1000 °C for B-containing steel. B-containing steel has worse hot
Fig. 6. Hot ductility curves for B-containing and B-free steel. ductility at 1150 °C, related to its re-melting property. The reduction in
area is as low as 18% at 1300 °C, and the high temperature embrit-
tlement zone is inevitable given the existence of residual solute phase
and 700 °C, and the fracture morphology showed ductile fracture
between dendrites.
characteristics. A uniform plastic deformation process occurs before
fracture. The fracture of the tensile specimen at 750–950 °C was a
CRediT authorship contribution statement
brittle fracture. The specimen at 750 °C experienced a brittle fracture,
but its reduction of area was 53.21%. The specimen underwent a slight
Jixuan Zhao: Data curation, Writing - original draft. Hangyu Zhu:
plastic deformation process before fracture, which restored some high-
Writing - review & editing, Project administration. Wei Wang:
temperature shaping. Brittle fractures were obvious on a section of the
Investigation, Supervision. Lanqing Wang: Data curation,
specimens at 800 and 850 °C, the reduction of area was lower than
Visualization, Investigation. Weisheng Wang: Data curation, Formal
other samples, and almost no plastic deformation process occurred
analysis.
before fracture. Cracks occurred along the fracture direction on the
cross-section of the specimen at 950 °C.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The ductile fracture surface of the tensile fracture surface of the
sample at 1000–1100 °C has ductile fracture dimple morphology as
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
observed at 100× magnification. Fig. 4 shows that area of the fracture
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
surface is smaller, and the sample undergoes uniform plastic deforma-
ence the work reported in this paper.
tion before fracture, showing good high-temperature shaping.
According to Fig. 5, the tensile sample at 1150 °C displayed a brittle
Acknowledgement
fracture. At 100× magnification, the cross-section was relatively flat,
and the local cross-section was covered with uniform oxide film with
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
obvious morphology after solidification of molten droplets. This in-
Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51604198 and 51874214).
dicates that re-melting occurred at this temperature. Tensile specimens
at 1200 and 1250 °C showed brittle fracture characteristics. Fig. 4
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