Effect of Si addition on secondary hardening of alloy steels

In this work, the precipitation kinetics of secondary carbides in Si-bearing steels was examined via calorimetric analysis coupled with the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami kinetic model. In particular, the properties of two commercial high-speed steels (10V and ASP 23), which contained the secondary carbides described by the formulas MC/M 23 C 6 and MC/M 23 C 6 /M 6 C, respectively, were investigated and compared with those of PSD and AISI D2 steels. The obtained results revealed that the presence of Si in alloys not only inhibited the precipitation of the cementite phase, but also accelerated the precipitation kinetics of the secondary carbides. Using the obtained magnitudes of the thermodynamic driving force for complete precipitation in the metastable systems formed under para-equilibrium and ortho-equilibrium conditions, it was found that the addition of Si decreased the stability of the system produced under para-equilibrium conditions and, therefore, enabled the diffusion of interstitial carbon species at low temperatures as well as rapid aging during the secondary hardening reaction.