Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Materials
Volume
16
Issue
12
Publisher
MDPI
School
School of Engineering
RAS ID
60213
Funders
National Natural Science Foundation of China / Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province / Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province Education Department
Abstract
With the development of high-speed and heavy-haul railway transportation, the surface failure of rail turnouts has become increasingly severe due to insufficient high hardness-toughness combination. In this work, in situ bainite steel matrix composites with WC primary reinforcement were fabricated via direct laser deposition (DLD). With the increased primary reinforcement content, the adaptive adjustments of the matrix microstructure and in situ reinforcement were obtained at the same time. Furthermore, the dependence of the adaptive adjustment of the composite microstructure on the composites’ balance of hardness and impact toughness was evaluated. During DLD, the laser induces an interaction among the primary composite powders, which leads to obvious changes in the phase composition and morphology of the composites. With the increased WC primary reinforcement content, the dominant sheaves of the lath-like bainite and the few island-like retained austenite are changed into needle-like lower bainite and plenty of block-like retained austenite in the matrix, and the final reinforcement of Fe3W3C and WC is obtained. In addition, with the increased primary reinforcement content, the microhardness of the bainite steel matrix composites increases remarkably, but the impact toughness decreases. However, compared with conventional metal matrix composites, the in situ bainite steel matrix composites manufactured via DLD possess a much better hardness-toughness balance, which can be attributed to the adaptive adjustment of the matrix microstructure. This work provides a new insight into obtaining new materials with a good combination of hardness and toughness.
DOI
10.3390/ma16124437
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Zhao, M., Jiang, X,. Guan, Y., Yang, H., Zhao, L., Liu, D., . . . Zhang, L. C. (2023). Enhanced hardness-toughness balance induced by adaptive adjustment of the matrix microstructure in in situ composites. Materials, 16(12), article 4437. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16124437