Decarburization is an important process during the heat treatment of steels. It can be divided into three separated events: dissolution of carbides, diffusion of carbon through the iron matrix, and surface reactions. The process is very sensitive to temperature. During intercritical annealing, austenite nucleates in the cementite-ferrite interface and grows at the rate determined by the diffusion of carbon in austenite. The presence of a decarburizing atmosphere during annealing guides the carbon diffusion in ferrite toward the surface, generating a flux of carbon from austenite toward ferrite, disturbing the austenite growth. In the presence of pearlite, the ferrite-austenite interface can be assumed to remain static until pearlite is completely dissolved, reducing then the carbon flux in austenite, consequently diminishing the austenite formation rate. At intercritical temperatures, the cementite-free ferrite layer at the surface reaches a greater width due to the combination of the thermodynamic fraction of austenite, dissolution rate of cementite, and the diffusivity of carbon in austenite and ferrite. In this study, an experimental investigation of the effects of the carbide morphology and distribution and the a À c phase transformation in the decarburization kinetics on hypo-eutectoid steels is presented. It is suggested that the change of the dissolution kinetics of the carbides due to its morphology will affect the austenitization kinetics. Thus, the distribution of the carbon in the microstructure may determine the rate of decarburization in combination with the carbon diffusion through the phases or the gas-metal reactions.

No abstract

In this study, the quantification of decarburization induced during the annealing process for the fabrication of electrical steels was carried out using glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy (GD‐OES). Different calibration methods, based on external and internal standard references, were examined to optimize the quantification of carbon concentration. Accurate calibration curves for carbon at low concentration ranges were achieved by the use of carbon intensity calibrated by the internal reference, i.e. iron intensity line. This methodology was found to be beneficial for long GD‐OES measurements, providing a better correction over changes in the overall emission intensity with the sputter time. The good depth resolution obtained by the GD‐OES technique enabled the identification of specific features in the steel microstructure related to carbide coarseness. Quantitative carbon concentration profiles were obtained by GD‐OES to evaluate the decarburization effect on the microstructure of low‐carbon steels considering different initial microstructures. The effect of the spatial distribution of carbides in these microstructures on the decarburization kinetics was also studied. Through quantitative determination of carbon elemental profiles by GD‐OES, information about the morphology of the cementite in the microstructure and its development in relation to decarburization was acquired. The depth of decarburization can accurately be determined. On the basis of the global results, GD‐OES thus emerged as being a fast and reliable technique for a better understanding of decarburization kinetics. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.