Duplex hardening is a process in which conventional heat-treatments such as secondary or case hardening are followed up by surface nitriding to achieve exceptional properties, particularly in the context of aeroengine bearings. Hardness values in excess of 1 000 HV can in principle be achieved, and although the hardness decreases as a function of depth below the surface, some level of enhanceme...

The depth of scientific understanding of martensitic transformations provides a strong foundation for the predictive design of materials exploiting artensitic phenomena. Recent theoretical advances supporting this capability include twoand three-dimensional applications of Landau–Ginzburg heory to martensitic nucleation, and important refinements of multiscale kinetic theory. Accurate control o...

Fusion power is generated when hot deuterium and tritium nuclei react, producing alpha particles and 14 MeV neutrons. These neutrons escape the reaction plasma and are absorbed by the surrounding material structure of the plant, transferring the heat of the reaction to an external cooling circuit. In such high-energy neutron irradiation environments, extensive atomic displacement damage and tra...

The higher steam temperatures and pressures required to achieve an increase in the thermal efficiency of fossil fuel fired power generation plant necessitate the application of steels with improved creep rupture strength. The 9% chromium steels developed during the last three decades are of great interest for components of advanced, high efficiency power plant. In this Paper, the development of...

Austenitic carbon steels that exhibit excellent mechanical properties due to the twinning-induced plasticity effect have been studied extensively. On the other hand, austenitic stainless steels usually achieve good strength and ductility via transformation-induced plasticity. However, relying on martensite transformation for strength may cause problems such as delayed cracking. Therefore, the t...

Advanced high strength steels (AHSS) are engineered to have both high strength and enhanced formability characteristics. Yet, the formed components undergo springback due to elastic recovery after removal of the forming tools. This severely affects the dimensional accuracy of the part. Many techniques have been evolved to deal with springback. A simple approach is to design forming tools that c...

Steels applied in the automotive industry can be classified under the AHSS category, which includes dual-phase (DP) steels, complex-phase (CP) steels and transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP) steels. The UHSS category mainly includes martensitic steels. The above-mentioned steel groups are well pressable, show an excellent combination of strength, service life and absorption of strain energy...

We report a computational 'alloy by design' approach which can significantly accelerate the design process and substantially reduce the development costs. This approach allows simultaneously optimization of alloy composition and heat treatment parameters based on the integration of thermodynamic, thermo-kinetics and a genetic algorithm optimization route. Novel steel compositions and associated...

Many traditional approaches for strengthening steels typically come at the expense of useful ductility, a dilemma known as strength-ductility trade-off. New metallurgical processing might offer the possibility of overcoming this. Here we report that austenitic 316L stainless steels additively manufactured via a laser powder-bed-fusion technique exhibit a combination of yield strength and tensil...