Influence of vanadium on microstructure and mechanical properties of high-alloyed steel

In addition to new, modern non-metallic materials that successfully replace metallic materials in certain fields, steel materials are still widely used in technical practice. This trend will continue for many years. For this reason, there is a need to develop new types of steel with better properties alongside existing ones. The group of newer steels with relatively high values of hardness and toughness includes Cr-Mo steels with high vanadium content. For the investigations in this study, the steel X180CrMo12-1 was used, with varying vanadium content ranging from 0.5% to 3%. Modern equipment was used for the conducted research, including chemical composition analysis, observation of the shape of metallic grains and carbide networks, friction and wear resistance testing, as well as electrochemical characterization. The aim of the conducted research is to determine the composition of carbides, microstructure, morphology, and to evaluate their impact on material characteristics. Steel samples were experimentally tested using scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDS) and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD).