Effects of Different Substrates on Microstructures and Mechanical Properties of a Bulk Nanocrystalline Structure Pure Iron Prepared by Aluminothermic Reaction Casting

A simple method was developed to produce the nanocrystalline pure iron by aluminothermic reaction casting. The microstructure of the iron was investigated by optical microscope (OM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), electron probe micro-analyzer (EPMA), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The mechanical performances of nanocrystalline pure iron were tested. It is found that the pure iron consists of nanocrystalline ferrite. For different substrates of copper and glass, the average grain size of the ferrite was 38 and 35 nm, respectively, which is larger on copper substrate than that on glass. The hardness, compressive strength, tensile strength, and total elongation are 167 and 137 HB, 400 and 500 MPa, 243 and 185 MPa, 16% and 10% on copper substrate and glass substrate, respectively. The hardness, tensile strength and total elongation are all larger on copper substrate than those on glass substrate, while the compressive strength is lower. The large supercooling in the product solidification provides the condition for high nucleation rate and thus leads to nano-grained austenite and final nano-grained ferrite transformed from those small austenite grains.