Martensite and bainite in nanocrystalline steels: understanding, design and applications

There are major difficulties in creating novel nanocrystalline structures that have a combination of properties appropriate for large scale applications. An important requirement is to be able to manufacture nanocrystalline components which are large in all dimensions on their macroscale whilst retaining their nanostructure. In addition, the material concerned must be cheap to produce if it is not to be limited to niche applications. Severe plastic deformation has not succeeded in this respect since grain growth cannot effectively be suppressed during consolidation processes. Therefore, processing bulk nanocrystalline materials for structural applications still poses a big challenge, particularly in achieving an industrially viable process. Here we describe various processing strategies and alloy developments currently being explored in the modern steel industry that have the potential to create extremely strong and affordable nanocrystalline engineering steels