Microstructural consideration on quantitative analysis of thermal treatment: Application to decarburization of steel

Microstructural consideration is implemented in the calculation using commercial finite element analysis to study the effect of thermal treatment for engineering applications. As a typical example, decarburization problem has been studied in the paper. The modeling analysis is then to be compared with the experimental results. The simulation of phases such as single γ-Fe, mixture of γ-Fe and α-Fe, and the mixture of α-Fe and Fe3C is performed by altering the heat treatment temperature. The simulated models have good agreement with the experimental results. The decarburization rate is the lowest at the temperature range between the two phases of γ-Fe and α-Fe coexist.