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For those who thought they knew everything that could be known about heat treating steel.
Minimizing time rather than maximizing temperature soak seems to be a key to the flash process.
Tooling and Production Magazine reported on this new "Flash Processing" technique that raises mechanical properties by about 7% over conventional martensitic HS steels.
This process is also said to improve formability - drawability or
rollability- by about 30%. Obviously, that gives designers quite a bit
of potential mass savings- key to lower fuel consumption and higher
performance- lighter, stronger, more efficient- in transporation
applications where these kinds of steels are typically used.
The structure of the steel after processing shows the expected martensite as well as bainite and an abundance of carbides.
Traditional heat treatments try to assure a uniformity of the desired
resultant microstruture- anomalous structures are considered bad.
The hybrid structure developed by this flash processing technique is a
- dare we say- "composite microstructure" which gives the material bulk
mechanical properties of improved strength and increased ductility.
We
look forward to the continued development of this exciting new process
by it's inventor, Gary Cola, the research team at The Ohio State
University, and National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Integrative
Materials Joining for Energy Applications which is leading a consortium
of other universities to develop this technology.
Tooling and Production Story
Editor's Note: CR4 would like to thank Milo for contributing this blog entry, which originally appeared here.
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Re: Flash Bainite Steel - Something New Under the Sun!
