Impact toughness and microstructure relationship in niobium- and vanadium-microalloyed steels processed with varied cooling rates to similar yield strength

We describe here the relationship between microstructure and impact toughness behavior as a function of cooling rate for industrially processed Nb- and V-microalloyed steels of almost similar yield strength (∼60 ksi). Both Nb- and V-microalloyed steels exhibited increase in toughness with increase in cooling rates during processing. However, Nb-microalloyed steels were characterized by relatively higher toughness than the V-microalloyed steels under identical processing conditions. The microstructure of Nb- and V-microalloyed steels processed at conventional cooling rate, primarily consisted of polygonal ferrite–pearlite microconstituents, while Nb-microalloyed steels besides polygonal ferrite and pearlite contained significant fraction of degenerated pearlite. The microstructure of Nb- and V-microalloyed steels processed at relatively higher cooling rate contained degenerated pearlite and lath-type (acicular) ferrite in addition to the primary ferrite–pearlite constituents. The fraction of degenerated pearlite was higher in Nb-microalloyed steels than in the V-microalloyed steels. In both Nb- and V-microalloyed steels the precipitation characteristics were similar with precipitation occurring at grain boundaries, dislocations, and in the ferrite matrix. Fine-scale (∼5–10 nm) precipitation was observed in the ferrite matrix of both the steels. The selected area diffraction (SAD) pattern analysis revealed that these fine precipitates were MC type of niobium and vanadium carbides in the respective steels and followed Baker–Nutting orientation relationship with the ferrite matrix. The microstructural studies suggest that the increase in toughness of Nb-microalloyed steels is attributed to higher fraction of degenerated pearlite in the steel.