Precipitation behavior of titanium nitride on a primary inclusion particle during solidification of bearing steel

Titanium nitride precipitation on a primary inclusion particle during solidification of bearing steel has been tracked by varying temperature in a confocal scanning violet laser microscope. Upon precipitation, an obvious growth of titanium nitride on a primary inclusion particle was observed due to the rapid solute diffusion in liquid steel. The onset of titanium nitride precipitation did not change with primary inclusion particle size, but the time of growth was greater for a smaller primary inclusion particle. Meanwhile, the particle size displayed little influence on the total precipitated amount of titanium nitride on it under the same conditions. At the later period of solidification, almost no change occurred in inclusion size, but the inclusion shape varied from circle to almost square in two-dimension, or cubic in three-dimension, to attain the equilibrium with steel.