INFLUENCE OF A CRYOGENIC TREATMENT ON THE FRACTURE TOUGHNESS OF AN AISI 420 MARTENSITIC STAINLESS STEEL

PRIETO GERMÁN; PEREZ IPIÑA, J. E.; TUCKART WALTER

MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGY

INST ZA KOVINSKE MATERIALE I IN TEHNOLOGIE

Año: 2017 vol. 51 p. 591 - 596

1580-2949

Cryogenic treatments have been employed over the past three decades for both tool and high-alloy steels to improve their wearresistance, mainly through the transformation of retained austenite and the precipitation of fine carbides. However, as theenhancement of one material property is often at the expense of another, it is interesting to evaluate the effect of this type oftreatments on the fracture toughness. The objective of the present work was to determine the plane-strain fracture toughness of acryogenically treated low-carbon AISI 420 martensitic stainless steel by means of standardized fracture tests, performed inaccordance with the ASTM E399 and ASTM E1820 standards. In this study, it was experimentally demonstrated thatcryogenically treated specimens showed a simultaneous increase in the KIC and hardness of 30 % and 5 %, respectively,compared to conventionally treated specimens.