Study on laser welded heat-affected zone in new ultralow carbon bainitic steel

800 MPa grade ultralow carbon bainitic (NULCB) steel is the recently developed new generation steel, which was produced by thermo mechanical controlled processing & relaxation-precipitation controlling transformation (TMCP&RPC) technique. The microstructure and the mechanical properties of the heat-affected zone (HAZ) in NULCB steel under laser welding conditions were investigated by using a Gleeble-1500 thermal simulator. The experimental results indicate that the simplex microstructure in the HAZ is granular bainite that consists of bainite-ferrite (BF) lath and M-A constituent when the cooling time from 800 to 500°C (t8/5) is 0.3-30 s, and the M-A constituent consists of twinned martensite and residual austenite. As t8/5 increases, the hardness and tensile strength of HAZ decreases, but they are higher than that of the base metal, indicating the absence of softened zone after laser welding. The impact toughness of HAZ increases at first and then decreases when t8/5 increases. The impact energy of HAZ is much higher than that of the base metal when t8/5 is between 3 and 15 s. It indicates that excellent low temperature toughness can be obtained under appropriate laser welding conditions.