Assessment of the effect of the steels structure dispersion on its magnetic and mechanical properties

Introduction: The control of the mechanical properties of structural steels is one of the main processes that regulate the service life of equipment. In most technical processes (pressure treatment, welding, rolling, thermal exposure), structure changes both in local areas and in the entire volume. Changes in the steel structure entail changes in its properties and as a result in local areas, at various stages of operation, the likelihood of the occurrence and development of critical defects increases. Its presence significantly affects the performance of the equipment, and leads to premature aging of the material and its failure. Precisely because the control of the mechanical properties of steel remains one of the urgent problems, new control methods are being developed. It is known that all properties of steel depend on the structure of the substance, however, studies on the effect of the dispersion of the structure under consideration on the mechanical properties are presented in an insignificant amount. Purpose: to analyze from a mathematical point of view the influence of the factor of different grain size, as a parameter reflecting the dispersity of the system, on the mechanical properties of structural steel. The paper studies a heat-treated planar samples of steels 15KhSND, 09G2S and St3. Methods of research: scanning electron and optical microscopes are used to study the grain structure and grain boundaries; SIAMS 700 software package is used for finding the boundaries and average data of the grain structure; portable X-ray fluorescence analyzer of metals and alloys X-MET 7000 is used to determine the chemical composition of the test samples in percentage; tensile testing machine IR-50 is used for measuring the tensile strength of samples; Vickers hardness tester is used to determine the hardness of samples. Results and discussion: it is found that there is a satisfactory correlation for the mechanical properties of structural steels (hardness and ultimate strength) and the grain size factor, which can be used to predict the hazardous states of structures and the operating time. The analysis of variance and regression of the detected dependencies is carried out. It is noted that the dropout of some values from the general regression dependence can most likely be associated with a decrease in the value of internal stresses as a result of a decrease in the distortions of the crystal lattice of steel occurring during heat treatment. It should be noted that the processes occurring and the degree of its influence on the properties of the structural steels under consideration can be different due to the presence of different amounts of alloying elements in the composition of the studied steels.