Residual austenite dependence on heat treatment conditions in high chromium steels for forged components

A key issue in high strength steels for forging is in the proper heat treatment design. It is also to be underlined that a fully microstructural evolution analysis as a function of thermal conditions has not still been achieved in this class of materials. Therefore, the topis of promoting the best microstructure in these materials is nowadays particularly hot since it will also allow the material to be used for long time. In this work, several heat treatment conditions are analyzed putting in evidence their effect on forged steels with 7% Cr. A clears effect in terms of residual austenite (RA) volume fraction is clearly detected with tempering temperatures.