Mechanical and Metallurgical Evaluation of Carburized, Conventionally and Intensively Quenched Steels

Steels subjected to carburizing, quenching, and tempering are widely used for components that require hardness and superficial mechanical resistance together with good core toughness. Intensive quenching is a method that includes advantages including crack prevention, increased mechanical resistance, and improvement in fatigue performance when subjected to very fast (intensive) cooling. However, achieving these advantages requires the formation of sufficiently high surface compressive residual stresses and fine grains at the core of steel components. If the cooling rate is sufficiently high after intensive quenching, then low-hardenability, killed plain carbon steels may be used instead of higher-cost, low alloy steels because compressive residual stresses are formed at the surface of steel parts. The objective of this study was to compare between carburized non-killed AISI 1020 steel samples, which were not modified by Al that were subsequently conventionally and also intensively quenched to determine the effect of quenching on achieving the necessary formation of fine grain size. For comparison, carburized AISI 8620 steel test specimens were conventionally quenched. After quenching, all test specimens were characterized by metallurgical and mechanical analyses. The results of this study showed that when the two quenching methods were compared for carburized non-killed AISI 1020 steel, intensive quenching method was found to be superior with respect to mechanical and metallurgical properties. When comparing the different steels, it was found that intensively quenched, non-killed, AISI 1020 steel yielded grain sizes which were three times greater than those obtained with conventionally quenched, carburized AISI 8620 steel. Therefore, the benefits of intensive quenching were negated. These results show that plain carbon steels must be modified by Al to make fine grains if intensively quenched plain-carbon steel is to replace alloyed AISI 8620 steel.