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Connection Between Micro and Macro Hardness Pearlitic -Ferritic Steel

Article  in  AIP Conference Proceedings · September 2012

DOI: 10.1063/1.4751563

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 Connection Between Micro and Macro Hardness
Pearlitic - Ferritic Steel.
Edlira Dukaa , Heinrich Oettelb , Teuta Diloc
a
Department of Physics, FIM&F, Polytechnic University of Tirana UPT, Tirana, Albania
b c
Institute of Material Science, TU-Freiberg, Gustav-Zeuner-Strasse 5, D-09596 Freiberg, Germany
Department of Physics, F SH N ,University of Tirana, Albania

Abstract. Many physical and mechanical properties of materials are closely related to their microstructure,
technologies to control the microstructure of materials have been well developed to obtain suitable properties. We
measured the volume fraction of perlite and ferrite, micro Vickers hardness in pearlite and ferrite and macro
hardness using different sample with different carbon content. The volume fraction of pearlite increases by
increasing carbon content. By increasing carbon content, micro and macro hardness increase. We can conclude that
for those conditional the mixing rule can’t be use.

Keywords: Pearlitic-ferritic steel, micro-macro hardness, IA, mixing rule.

PACS: 61.82.Bg, 62.20.Qp, 87.57.N, 68.37.Ma,

INTRODUCTION

Two-phase material as a material consisting of two solid, immiscible phases with many
particles of both phases contained within a representative element of the material. This definition
includes a wide class of natural and man-made materials, such as composites used in engineering
and construction. Considering two-phase materials, we focus on the relationship between
microstructure and physical properties, especially elastic constants. Microstructure includes
occlusion concentration, orientation, shape, size, and distribution. There are several reports on
the evaluation of the mechanical properties of materials from their microstructure.
The main objective of this paper is to show the relationship between micro-macro hardness in
pearlitic–ferritic steel. After the preparation of sample with different carbon content, the relation
between structure and sample properties will be shown by being analyzed. Pearlite and ferrite
phases will be study undependably from each other, in order to measure the micro hardness of
pearlite and micro hardness of ferrite for different load. After that will be study two phase
together, in order to measure the macro hardness of each sample with different percent of carbon.
In fact what expected from this study is that in the range where hardness is independent from
load using mixing rule we ought to show, if it’s possible, that the HVmacro calculate is the same with
HVmacro expe (where HVmacro calculate is Vickers hardness calculate using mixing rule and HVmacro
expe is Vickers hardness measure experimentally).
The mixing rule is Eq 1[1]:
HVmacrocalculate  HVmicrop f p  HVmicrof f f (1)
where HVmicrop is micro hardness measure in the pearlite colony, fp is volume fraction of pearlite,
HVmicrof is micro hardness measure in the ferrite grain and ff is volume fraction of ferrite.
As a rule the distribution of stresses and strains in particle composites is not simply in proportion
to the volume fraction of the phases: the “harder” phases (i.e. the phases with the higher flow
stress) carries a comparatively greater part of load, while the “softer” phase tends to take the
greater part of the strain (with reference to the volume fraction ratio). A simple rule of mixtures
is then invoked [2-4]
 c  f    f   
with f  f   1 (2)
 c  f    f   

Here  and  signify stress and strain, f’s are the volume fractions,  and  are the phases and c
stands for the composite.
Among the factors to be considered are the chemistries of the component phases, volume fraction
and morphologies of phases, texture and crystallographic relationships between phases,
inhomogeneous stress and strain distributions, and interaction stresses [5,6].
The microstructure of pearlite is an aggregate of cementite and ferrite, both in lamellar form. The
tensile strength of a slowly cooled fully pearlitic structure is about 700MPa but it can reach
values of 1300MPa [7] under appropriate transformation conditions

MATERIAL AND METHODS

In steels analyses, the phases are adequately contrasted in the polished condition. The particles,
which may be very fine, are easily torn out of the matrix during careless specimen preparation.
The cylindrical specimens with a size of 8 mm (diameter) and 15 mm (height) were cut from the
rod. The chosen samples are steel with; 0.15% carbon, 0.45% carbon, 0.60% carbon and 1%
carbon. From each type have been studied 2 samples. Chemical compositions of those samples
are alloy steels, with percentage of Mn element range from 0.4 to 0.7%. The samples with 0.15%
C are normalized in 925°C, sample with 0.45% C in 855°C, sample with 0.60%C in 820°C and
sample with 1% C in 770°C. The fine scale ferrite-pearlite microstructure is produced after
normalization process at cooling in room temperature for 60 minute. The microstructural
observations were carried out using optical microscopy after polishing the sections and etching
them in a 4 percent solution of nitric acid in alcohol. With a good etching solution, the removal
of metal from surface will not occur uniformly. For those experiments we have used optical
microscope, scanning electron microscope (SEM), analysis auto software, Vickers hardness
tester LECO M-400-G3 and Wolpert macro-hardness tester.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

By using SEM some photo of microstructure has been taken, for each sample has been done a
controlled of carbon percent and calculation of the volume fraction for both phases using image
analysis. The experiment repeated 10 times for specimen with 0.15%C, 0.45%C and 0.60%C and
taken those results which are the average of many images that are analyse.
 TABLE 1. The value of volume fraction for each sample measured.
Sample % Pearlite % Ferrite %C
Steel C15 14% 86% 0.15%
Steel C45 66% 34% 0.53%
Steel C60 78% 22% 0.65%
We could not measure the volume fraction for sample with 1% carbon because area in C100 isn’t
ferrite. Although this cannot affect the determination of area fraction, the aspect ratio may be
misunderstood. Increasing the magnification to separate the particles can alleviate the error.
After preparing the specimens (cutting, polishing, etching and taking image of the
microstructure) we have start with Vickers micro hardness test for different steel specimens with
deferent carbon percent in different load.
TABLE 2. Micro-hardness value versus diameter of indentation for; a) pearlite area in sample with 0.15% carbon
(C15) and b)ferrite area in sample with 0.45% carbon (C45).
a) b)

Pearlite Ferrite
d(mm) HV d(mm) HV
0.0128 276.3 0.0175 152.0
0.0198 237.6 0.0254 145.8
0.0288 224.4 0.0353 144.0
0.0511 220.7 0.0519 143.6
0.0665 209.7 0.0626 142.4

Above it is shown some results of hardness and d (diameter indentation) for ferrite and pearlite in
C15 for ferrite and in C45 for pearlite with different load in the range of 10p until 500p.
Examples of Vickers hardness test are shown below in FIGURE 1.

a) b) c)
FIGURE 1. Vickers hardness test: a) C45 b) C15 c) macro-hardness test in C15
In FIGURE 2 it’s shown clearly that the value of micro-hardness for pearlite and ferrite after
some time we can find the range where hardness is undependable from load, this is the range
where we make our study. To measure the Vickers hardness in specimen with 0.60%C and 1%
C for those loads like C15 and C45 in fact it is difficult because in those areas we can measure
only the pearlite hardness and it is very hard to measure the hardness in the ferrite area.

FIGURE 2.The pearlite and ferrite Vickers normalized hardness versus diameter of indentation.
 The Wolpert hardness tester is used for Vickers, macro-hardness indentations. From experiments
are taken those results:

TABLE 3. The result of Vicker hardness for specimens with different percent of carbon.

Sample
C15 C45 C60 C100
LOAD-49N 134 HV 203 HV 245 HV 273 HV
LOAD-98N 137 HV 204 HV 251 HV 276 HV
LOAD-294N 138 HV 203 HV 252 HV 282 HV

We have repeat experiment also with other load but the results taken are similarly the same.
The next step after micro-hardness measure in the each phase and the measure of macro-hardness
is to check mixing rule and to see what happens.
TABLE 4. The value of micro-hardness of pearlite and ferrite, also the macro-hardness calculate using mixing rule
and macro-hardness measure by experiments.

Ferrit micro- Pearlite micro- HVmacroexsp HVmacrocalculate

hardness hardness
C15 145.5 HV 209.7 HV 137 HV 154 HV
C45 142.4 HV 215 HV 204 HV 190 HV
C60 143.5 HV 210 HV 250 HV 195 HV

Summarizing, the volume fraction of pearlite increases by increasing carbon content. By

increasing carbon content, micro and macro hardness increase. We can conclude that for those
conditional the mixing rule can’t be use. The main reason that we can’t use mixing rule is not
taking in consideration the grain boundaries. From results its show clearly that the macro-
hardness calculate isn’t the same with macro-hardness measure experimentally. We can see that
with higher of carbon percent this different it’s making more and more high.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The financial supports of the DAAD are gratefully acknowledged.

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