Materials Science Forum Submitted: 2018-02-08

ISSN: 1662-9752, Vol. 928, pp 269-272 Accepted: 2018-02-12

doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.928.269 Online: 2018-08-15
© 2018 Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland

Effect of Vanadium on the Microstructure and Property of Rebar Steel

Z.S. Yao1,a, G. Xu1,b* and M.X. Zhou1,c
1
The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, Key Laboratory for Ferrous Metallurgy
and Resources Utilization of Ministry of Education, Wuhan University of Science and Technology,
Wuhan 430081, China
a
c86869062@163.com, bxuguang@wust.edu.cn, ckdmingxing@163.com

Keywords: Microalloyed steel; vanadium; rebar steel; microstructure; property

Abstract. Rebar steel is used in the construction of various buildings. Vanadium (V), one of
microalloying elements, is often added in the rebar steel to improve mechanical property. In order
to analyse the effect of V on the microstructure and property of rebar steel, 0.043 wt.% V was
added in a 20MnSi rebar steel. The base steel and V added steel were refined in a 50 kg vacuum
induction furnace and rolled to plates of 14 mm thick. The mechanical properties of two steels were
compared by tensile tests on a Wan-10000 tensile testing machine. The microstructure and
precipitation of two steels were analysed by SEM and TEM observations. The microstructures of
two steels consist of ferrite and pearlite. However, the grains of V bearing steel are finer. Moreover,
fine nanoscale precipitates of V can be observed in V bearing steel. Therefore, the mechanical
property of V addition rebar steel is improved by gain refinement strengthening and precipitation
strengthening.

Introduction
Microalloyed steels are generally microalloyed using niobium (Nb), vanadium (V), titanium (Ti),
individually or in combination [1-4]. The addition of microalloying elements can improve the
properties of steels through grain refinement strengthening and precipitation strengthening [5-7]. In
order to improve the mechanical properties of steels, microalloyed elements are often added in
various kinds of steels. The strengthening effects of microalloyed elements are affected by their
amounts and the processing parameters such as cooling rate, coiling temperature etc. [8-12]. Rebar
steel is widely used in the construction of various buildings. Vanadium, as an important
microalloyed element, is often added in the rebar steel to improve the strength of the rebar steel.
However, the improvement of strength is usually accompanied by the decrease in plasticity, so it is
necessary to ensure that the addition of V has no great influence on plasticity. Therefore, it is
important to study the effect of V on the microstructure, precipitates and properties of rebar steel in
order to produce high-strength V-added rebar.
20MnSi is a conventional rebar steel. But its strength is relatively lower and cannot meet the
requirement of engineering application in many cases. Therefore, in order to improve the strength of
conventional rebar steel, 0.043 wt.% V is added in a 20MnSi rebar steel in the present study. The
effect of V on the microstructure, precipitates and properties of rebar steel is investigated. The
present study provides useful reference to the optimization of chemical composition of rebar steel.

Experimental Procedure
Two rebar steels with different V content were refined in a 50 kg vacuum induction furnace. The
chemical components are given in table 1. V-free steel is a conventional 20MnSi rebar steel without
V addition and V-added steel is added with 0.043 wt.% V. The ingots were hot-rolled from about
120 mm ingot to 14 mm plate, followed by water cooling to 680 °C and then air cooling to room
temperature. The reheating temperature, rolling temperature, and finishing rolling temperature were
1180 °C, 1100 °C and 950 °C, respectively.

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270 Composite Materials and Material Engineering II

Table 1. Chemical components of two steels

No. C Si Mn V P S
V-free 0.21 0.40 1.40 / 0.020 0.009
V-added 0.22 0.37 1.36 0.043 0.022 0.008
The samples for microstructure observation, precipitation analysis and mechanical measurement
were obtained from hot-rolled plates. Tensile tests were conducted on a Instron-5969 universal
tensile machine at the ambient temperature. The microstructures of two steels were observed on a
Nova 400 Nano scanning electron microscope (SEM). The precipitates in the steels were observed
on a JEM-2100F transmission electron microscope (TEM) operated at an accelerating voltage of
120 kV. The components of the precipitates were analysed by an INCA energy dispersive
spectrometer (EDS).

Results and Discussions

Microstructure. The microstructures of two steels are shown in figure 1. The microstructures of
two steels mainly consist of polygonal ferrite (PF) and pearlite (P). At the centre of the plates,
ferrite and pearlite grains in V-added steel are finer than in V-free steel (figures 1a and 1b). Similar
result is observed at the edge of the plates (figures 1c and 1d). It can be inferred that the grains are
refined by V-addition. On the one hand, it is known that V-precipitates separate out during hot-
rolling stage by strain-induced effect, which pins the austenite grains and hinders the
recrystallization of deformed austenite [13-15]. As a result, the prior austenite in V-added steel is
finer, which provides more nucleation sites for subsequent ferritic and pearlitic transformations. On
the other hand, V-precipitates formed during ferritic and pearlitic transformations in cooling stage
hinder the growth of ferrite and pearlite, thus resulting in the refined microstructure [8-10]. In
addition, the microstructure at the edge in the plates is finer compared to that at the centre. This is
because the cooling rate at the edge in the plates is larger, which brings about larger driving force
for ferritic and pearlitic transformations.

Fig. 1. Microstructure of two steels at different positions in the plates: (a) V-free steel at centre;
(b) V-added steel at centre; (c) V-free steel at edge; (b) V-added steel at edge
Precipitates. Figure 2 presents the typical TEM morphology and the energy spectrum of
precipitates in two steels. It shows that the precipitates in V-free steel are mainly cementite which
appears in ellipsoidal shape (figures 2a and 2c), whereas the precipitates in V-added steel are
mainly V-carbides with spherical shape (figures 2b and 2d). It is obvious that the amount of
precipitates in V-added steel is larger than that in V-free steel. Two types of precipitates exist in V-
added steel. Some precipitates form during the hot-rolling stage and others form during the cooling
 Materials Science Forum Vol. 928 271

stage after hot-rolling. The former act as the role of refining prior austenite grains and their size is
relative larger because of higher temperature. The latter can strengthen the steels by precipitation
strengthening and their size is relatively small.

Fig. 2. Typical TEM morphology and energy spectrum of precipitates of two steels: (a) precipitates
in V-free steel; (b) precipitates in V-added steel; (c) energy spectrum of point 1; (d) energy
spectrum of point 2
Mechanical properties. It is well known that the strength of the steel is generally derived from the
strengthening contributions of grain size, solid solution, precipitation, dislocation and
transformation. The strength of the steel can be expressed as follows [2, 16]:
σy = σbase + σdisl + σppt +σtransf (1)
σbase = 63 + 23WMn + 53WSi + 700WP + (15.4−30WC + 6.094/(0.8+WMn)) dα−1/2 (2)
σppt = (0.538 Gbf1/2)ln(x/2b)/x (3)
where σy is the yield strength of the steel, σbase contains the grain refinement strengthening and solid
solution strengthening, σppt is precipitation strengthening, σdisl is the dislocation strengthening, σtransf
is the transformation strengthening, Wi is the mass fraction of element i, dα is the diameter of the
grains, f is the volume fraction of precipitates, x is the mean precipitate diameter (in mm), G is
shear modulus (in MPa), 81600 MPa for steels, b is Burger’ vector (in mm). It indicates in above
equations that smaller gain size and more fine precipitates make higher strength of the steels.
Table 2 shows the mechanical properties of two steels. The yield strength and tensile strength of
V-added steel are higher although its total elongation is slightly lower. One reason for higher
strength in V-added steel is that the ferrite and pearlite grain sizes are smaller in V-added steel
(figure 1). Another reason is that there are more fine precipitates in V-added steel (figure 2). In
addition, although the elongation of the steel decreases with V addition, it is still as high as 25.1%
which can meet the requirement of engineering application. Therefore, the mechanical property of
conventional 20MnSi rebar is improved by 0.043 wt.% V addition through grain refinement
strengthening and precipitation strengthening.
Table 2. Mechanical properties of two steels
Yield strength Tensile strength Total elongation
No.
(MPa) (MPa) (%)
V-free 375.5±12 582.4±15 27.8±1
V-added 470.3±18 630.5±17 25.1±2
272 Composite Materials and Material Engineering II

Conclusion
A conventional 20MnSi rebar steel was added by 0.043 wt.% V. The effect of V on the
microstructure and property of rebar steel was investigated by SEM, TEM and tensile test. The
result shows that the microstructures of two steels consist of ferrite and pearlite. However, the
grains of V bearing steel are finer. Meanwhile, fine nanoscale precipitates of V separate out in V
bearing steel. As a result, the strength of V addition rebar steel is improved by gain refinement
strengthening and precipitation strengthening. In addition, although the elongation of the steel
decreases with V addition, it still meets the requirement of engineering application. Therefore, V
addition is the effective method to improve the mechanical property of the conventional 20MnSi
rebar steel.

Acknowledgment
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial supports from National Natural Science
Foundation of China (NSFC) (No. 51274154), National Nature Science Foundation of China
(No.51704217), Major projects of technological innovation in Hubei Province.

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