Contribution of the academician V.D. Sadovsky to studies of martensite transformation

V.D. Sadovsky was born on the August 6, 1908. In 1930 he graduated from the Kazan’ University and came to work at the Zlatoust machine tool plant, where he started his scientific activity. Already in his first research works he studied the effect of regimes of heat treatment on the onset temperature for the martensite transformation (Ms point) upon quenching of alloyed steels and on the amount of residual austenite.Since 1935 to 1991 V.D. Sadovsky had worked in the department of material science of the Institute of Metal Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences. There he continued his activity related to studying the martensite transformation of austenite and effect of alloying elements on the martensite point and amount of the residual austenite, as well as on mechanical properties.In 1950 he published his review “Transformation of austenite in martensite”. Then, a series of works devoted to the influence of plastic deformation on the development of martensite transformation were issued. At the same time, there was discovered and studied a new kind of treatment – thermomechanical treatment, which essentially increased strength and impact toughness of steels quenched to martensite.In 1961 he discovered the effect of magnetic field on the martensite transformation and in 1964, in collaboration with M.A. Krivoglaz he suggested a theory explaining this phenomenon. Later on accelerating effect of magnetic field was detected for bainite and pearlite transformations as well. These results were summarized in the monograph “Quenching of steels in magnetic field” in 1977.In 1976 V.D. Sadovsky took part in the conference devoted to the 50th anniversary of the G.V. Kurdyumov's work that set up ICOMAT, which was held in Japan. The last visit to Japan was dated 1986 in connection with the work of the ICOMAT-86 conference.

► This is a tribute to late Russian Academician V. Sadovsky and his main scientific achievements.
► Transformations during heating of steels, restoration of austenite grains at heating, thermo-mechanical treatment and temper embrittlement.
► Martensite transformations in magnetic field.
► Sadovsky contribution into teaching.
► Sadovsky scientific biography as a part of development metal science in Russia.