Temperature dependence of carbon supersaturation of ferrite in bainitc steels

The carbon supersaturation of bainitic ferrite was investigated by means of atom probe tomography in three steels with different carbon and silicon contents, to elucidate the effect of transformation temperature and the reaction velocity on the mechanisms controlling bainite formation with and without the interference of cementite precipitation. Results indicated no difference in the growth mechanism over the temperature range investigated. These results provide new evidence that the bainite transformation is essentially martensitic in natureResearch was supported by ORNL’s Shared Research Equipment (ShaRE) User Facility, which is sponsored by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Scientific User Facilities Division, US Department of Energy. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of the Research Fund for Coal and Steel and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for funding this research under the contracts RFSR-CT-2008-00022 and MAT2010-15330, respectively. the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for financial support in the form of a PhD research grant (FPIPeer reviewe