A Dilatometric Study of Tempering Complemented by Mössbauer Spectroscopy and other Characterization Techniques

A new approach for non-isothermal tempering analysis utilizing dilatometry is proposed and was carried out on a medium carbon steel with high silicon and additions of Mo and V for secondary hardening. The method includes a second non-isothermal step performed with the same heating rate (2 °C/min) used for the first step in order to create a baseline for analysis. The results were correlated with several other characterization techniques. Mössbauer spectroscopy confirmed the formation of transition carbides by auto-tempering as well as the presence of retained austenite decomposition (stage II) and cementite precipitation (stage III), which demonstrated significant overlap. Electrical resistivity measurements were correlated with dislocation densities obtained through X-ray diffraction analysis. Transmission electron microscopy dark field images confirmed the secondary hardening assessment from dilatometry.