Abstract

Mechanical and electrochemical properties of a cast carbon steel. Part 1: Behaviour in compression and hardness

Author(s): Elodie Conrath, Patrice Berthod

In some cases carbon steels can be shaped by plastic deformation with as result a heterogeneous repartition of hardening effects and different surface corrosion behaviours, the two depending on the local deformation mode as well as on the local deformation rate. To complete previous works concerning other compositions of steel and other modes of plastic deformation, a ferrito-pearlitic steel was here elaborated by foundry and shaped as a cylinder by using a special foundry technique, then cut into samples to which different rates of plastic deformation were applied by compression. A not-deformed cylindrical sample and the other cylindrical samples having been subjected to compression were cut in order to generate two types of samples,metallographic samples formicrostructure examination +Vickers indentation and electrodes for a later corrosion study, characterized by two main orientationswith respect to the deformation direction. In this first part only the microstructures and hardness levels are of interest. It is found that hardness increases more or less by comparison to the not-deformed state, this depending on the considered orientation. The comparison with previous works shows that this increase depends on the chemical composition of the steel, on the deformation rate and on the orientation, but also that the order between the two orientations depends on the steel type and on the deformationmode.