The ferrite nuclei starts precipitating below 500°C at austenite grain boundary.

- After the nucleation of ferrite phase, bainite transformation starts. This transformation occurs at
low temperatures and hence nucleation rate of ferrite is high and the growth rate is slow because
at low temperatures less mobility of carbon atoms is observed.

- The solubility of carbon is very less in ferrite as ferrite nuclei grow. Hence, cementite starts
precipitating in small particles in soft ferrite of matrix.

- Bainite formed at higher temperature is called as upper bainite (Forms at temperature between
550°C to 400°C) and bainite formed at low temperature is called as lower bainite (Forms at
temperature between 400°C to 250°C)

Martempering process is used to overcome restrictions of conventional quenching and

tempering. It is a heat treatment process which includes austenitisation followed by quenching.
This process takes place at a fast rate so as to avoid formation of pearlite, bainite, or ferrite.

- Martempering is also known as marquenching. This process permits transformation of austenite

to martensite, throughout the cross-section of a component without cracking or distortion.

- Pearlite is obtained by the transformation of austenite.

- Water or brine quickly cool than other mediums such as oil or air. Quenching medium provides
faster cooling rate than critical cooling rate and prevents transformation of austenite into other
phases. Jominy end quench test is used to measure hardenability.

Alloying elements: Hardenability increases due to presence of alloying elements in steel.

Carbon, manganese, chromium, silicon, nickel, vanadium, etc are the different alloying elements
used in steel.

2) Austenitic grain size: Fine grain size reduces hardenability because they have large density
of heterogeneous nucleation sites.

- As grain size decreases hardness, yield strength, tensile strength, fatigue strength, etc increases.
Fine grain steels have greater fatigue resistance.

- Grain size can be determined by an optical microscope on a transverse metallographic mount

by counting grains in a specific area.
3) Very high carbon content in steel: High carbon content in steel decreases hardenability.
Carbon in steel generally increases hardenability upto 0.65% but if used in high quantity it
reduces toughness and increases brittleness.

Austenitizing: In austenitic phase, steel is heated to red hot temperature. It then forms a single
phase mixture of FCC iron with carbon dissolved in the solution.

2) Quenching: In this stage, high temperature austenite is cooled to room temperature to convert
into martensite which is a new single phase mixture of carbon in iron. Crystal structure of
martensite is BCT (Body Centered Tetragonal).

3) Tempering: In this stage, martensite structure is decomposed by heating martensitic steel

below its critical temperature. During this stage martensite is decomposed into tempered
martensite, toughness of alloys is decreased to achieve greater toughness, stress is removed from
the micro-structures and retained austenite is transformed into other products such as bainite and
pearlite.

- Martensite phase produced by quenching is hard, strong but brittle. Hence, it becomes difficult
to use it for practical applications. Hence, the steel is tempered after hardening treatment.
Depending upon the hardness required tempering temperature is decided because as tempering
temperature increases toughness increases but hardness and strength decreases.

A piece of steel which was quenched after prolonged holding at 700⁰C was found to have ferrite
martensite structure. Explain when would you expect this to happen?

Answer : Eutectoid temperature of steel is a function of its composition. For plain carbon steel it
is around 720⁰C. To get martensite the steel should be heated beyond this temperature. However
presence of alloying elements which stabilize austenite (such as Mn, Ni) can bring down
eutectoid temperature. In this case steel must be an alloy steel whose eutectoid temperature is
less than 700⁰C. Therefore it must have been quenched from ferrite – austenite region and the
austenite on quenching got transformed to martensite resulting in a ferrite – martensite structure.