Quantification of Carbide Distribution in PM Tool Steels with Niob Addition

Abstract:

Powder of tool steel STN 19830 with 1.9 wt.% of Nb addition was prepared by atomization. Compact material was prepared using of hot isostatic pressing (HIP) and followed by heat treatment to improve the carbides distribution. The aim of this work was to evaluate and quantify the influence of heat treatment parameters on size, shape and spatial distribution of the carbides. Light optical microscopy and image analysis was used to obtain relevant data. Area fraction of carbides was used as parameter of carbide distribution in steel matrix. Sensitivity and accuracy of this method was compared with technique based on Voronoi tessellation. Result shows that size characteristics of tessellation and area fraction analysis are both sufficiently sensitive to indicate the deviation between different states of the respective material and could be used for quantification of size and spatial distribution of the carbides in PM tool steels. Positive effect of used heat treatment on size and distribution of carbides was verified.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 465)
• Pages: 310-313
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/KEM.465.310
• Online since: January 2011
• Authors: Radovan Bureš, Ivan Saxl, Mária Fáberová
• Keywords: Carbide Distribution, Image Analysis, Powder Metallurgy (PM), Quantification of Microstructure, Tool Steel

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