Low-oxygen rare earth steels

IF 37.2 1区材料科学 Q1 CHEMISTRY, PHYSICAL

Nature Materials Pub Date : 2022-09-08 DOI:10.1038/s41563-022-01352-9

Dianzhong Li, Pei Wang, Xing-Qiu Chen, Paixian Fu, Yikun Luan, Xiaoqiang Hu, Hongwei Liu, Mingyue Sun, Yun Chen, Yanfei Cao, Leigang Zheng, Jinzhu Gao, Yangtao Zhou, Lei Zhang, Xiuliang Ma, Chunli Dai, Chaoyun Yang, Zhonghua Jiang, Yang Liu, Yiyi Li

{"title":"Low-oxygen rare earth steels","authors":"Dianzhong Li, Pei Wang, Xing-Qiu Chen, Paixian Fu, Yikun Luan, Xiaoqiang Hu, Hongwei Liu, Mingyue Sun, Yun Chen, Yanfei Cao, Leigang Zheng, Jinzhu Gao, Yangtao Zhou, Lei Zhang, Xiuliang Ma, Chunli Dai, Chaoyun Yang, Zhonghua Jiang, Yang Liu, Yiyi Li","doi":"10.1038/s41563-022-01352-9","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Rare earth (RE) addition to steels to produce RE steels has been widely applied when aiming to improve steel properties. However, RE steels have exhibited extremely variable mechanical performances, which has become a bottleneck in the past few decades for their production, utilization and related study. Here in this work, we discovered that the property variation of RE steels stems from the presence of oxygen-based inclusions. We proposed a dual low-oxygen technology, and keeping low levels of oxygen content in steel melts and particularly in the raw RE materials, which have long been ignored, to achieve impressively stable and favourable RE effects. The fatigue life is greatly improved by only parts-per-million-level RE addition, with a 40-fold improvement for the tension–compression fatigue life and a 40% enhancement of the rolling contact fatigue life. We find that RE appears to act by lowering the carbon diffusion rate and by retarding ferrite nucleation at the austenite grain boundaries. Our study reveals that only under very low-oxygen conditions can RE perform a vital role in purifying, modifying and micro-alloying steels, to improve the performance of RE steels. The variation in the properties of rare earth (RE) steels is shown to stem from the presence of oxygen-based inclusions, and only under very-low-oxygen conditions can RE elements perform a vital role in purifying, modifying and micro-alloying steels.","PeriodicalId":19058,"journal":{"name":"Nature Materials","volume":"21 10","pages":"1137-1143"},"PeriodicalIF":37.2000,"publicationDate":"2022-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"26","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nature Materials","FirstCategoryId":"88","ListUrlMain":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-022-01352-9","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, PHYSICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 26

Abstract

Rare earth (RE) addition to steels to produce RE steels has been widely applied when aiming to improve steel properties. However, RE steels have exhibited extremely variable mechanical performances, which has become a bottleneck in the past few decades for their production, utilization and related study. Here in this work, we discovered that the property variation of RE steels stems from the presence of oxygen-based inclusions. We proposed a dual low-oxygen technology, and keeping low levels of oxygen content in steel melts and particularly in the raw RE materials, which have long been ignored, to achieve impressively stable and favourable RE effects. The fatigue life is greatly improved by only parts-per-million-level RE addition, with a 40-fold improvement for the tension–compression fatigue life and a 40% enhancement of the rolling contact fatigue life. We find that RE appears to act by lowering the carbon diffusion rate and by retarding ferrite nucleation at the austenite grain boundaries. Our study reveals that only under very low-oxygen conditions can RE perform a vital role in purifying, modifying and micro-alloying steels, to improve the performance of RE steels. The variation in the properties of rare earth (RE) steels is shown to stem from the presence of oxygen-based inclusions, and only under very-low-oxygen conditions can RE elements perform a vital role in purifying, modifying and micro-alloying steels.

Abstract Image

查看原文本刊更多论文

低氧稀土钢

在钢中添加稀土（RE）以生产 RE 钢，已被广泛应用于改善钢的性能。然而，稀土钢的机械性能变化极大，这已成为过去几十年来稀土钢生产、利用和相关研究的瓶颈。在这项工作中，我们发现 RE 钢的性能变化源于氧基夹杂物的存在。我们提出了双重低氧技术，并在钢熔体中，特别是在长期以来被忽视的 RE 原材料中保持低氧含量，从而获得了令人印象深刻的稳定和有利的 RE 效果。只需添加百万分之一级的 RE，就能大大提高疲劳寿命，拉伸-压缩疲劳寿命提高了 40 倍，轧制接触疲劳寿命提高了 40%。我们发现，RE 似乎是通过降低碳扩散率和阻止奥氏体晶界的铁素体成核来发挥作用的。我们的研究表明，只有在极低氧条件下，稀土才能在钢的净化、改性和微合金化方面发挥重要作用，从而提高稀土钢的性能。稀土钢性能的变化源于氧基夹杂物的存在，只有在极低氧条件下，稀土元素才能在钢的净化、改性和微合金化方面发挥重要作用。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Nature Materials 工程技术-材料科学：综合

CiteScore

62.20

自引率

0.70%

发文量

221

审稿时长

3.2 months

期刊介绍： Nature Materials is a monthly multi-disciplinary journal aimed at bringing together cutting-edge research across the entire spectrum of materials science and engineering. It covers all applied and fundamental aspects of the synthesis/processing, structure/composition, properties, and performance of materials. The journal recognizes that materials research has an increasing impact on classical disciplines such as physics, chemistry, and biology. Additionally, Nature Materials provides a forum for the development of a common identity among materials scientists and encourages interdisciplinary collaboration. It takes an integrated and balanced approach to all areas of materials research, fostering the exchange of ideas between scientists involved in different disciplines. Nature Materials is an invaluable resource for scientists in academia and industry who are active in discovering and developing materials and materials-related concepts. It offers engaging and informative papers of exceptional significance and quality, with the aim of influencing the development of society in the future.