Coarsening kinetics of TiN particle in a low alloyed steel in weld HAZ: Considering critical particle size

A metallurgical model for particle coarsening below the dissolution temperature is considered. Unlike the conventional approach, in which the mean-sized particle continues to grow, the proposed model considers the critical particle size, which can be derived from the Gibbs–Thomson equation. In this study, the proposed particle coarsening model was applied to study the behavior of titanium nitride (TiN) in low carbon steel during welding and heat treatment. The size distribution of the TiN particles showed that a typical log–normal distribution and predicted particle size distributions from the proposed model were in agreement with the experimental results. Finally, the predicted mean particle sizes agree better with experimental results than the results from the conventional model.