Effect of rare earths on impact toughness of a low-carbon steel

Studies of an industrial low-carbon steel (B450NbRE) suggest that the impact toughness is unexpectedly low under its practical service, probably resulting from the unstable recovery of rare earths (RE) in steelmaking. The purpose of this work is to investigate the effect of RE on the impact toughness in low-carbon steel. The B450NbRE steels with content of 0.0012–0.0180 wt.% RE were produced by vacuum induction furnace. The impact toughness and microstructure were investigated after hot rolled. The Gleeble-1500 thermal simulator was used to validate the effect of RE on the microstructure. The results indicate that the microstructure of hot-rolled steels is characterized by polygonal ferrite, quasi-polygonal ferrite, bainite and pearlite. The impact toughness increases with RE contents reaching the peak with content of 0.0047 wt.% RE, such a change exhibits the same rule as the case of the ferrite amount. However, this improvement in impact toughness is not only due to an increase in ferrite amount, but also the fine grained structure and the cleaner grain boundaries. And content of 0.0180 wt.% RE is excessive. Such an addition of the RE resulted in the martensite precipitates at the grain boundaries, which are extremely detrimental to impact toughness.

► RE as alloying element in steels instead of used to deoxidize and desulfurize.
► An appropriate RE content can improve significantly the impact toughness of the low carbon steel.
► Excessive RE content induces a volume of martensite precipitates at grain boundaries.
► The bainite transformation is benefit from RE additions.
► The ferrite reconstructive transformation might be changed by RE enrichment at grain boundaries.