Effect of various heat treatments on microstructure and mechanical properties of 34CrNiMo6 steel

Three different austenitization treatments were applied to high strength 34CrNiMo6 steel: conventional austenitization (CAT), high temperature austenitization (HTA) and duplex treatment (DT). It was found that DT structure has finer prior austenite grain size (30 μm) than those of HTA (200 μm) and CAT (70 μm) structures. DT and HTA structures have coarser lath size for martensite than CAT structure. DT results in higher room temperature impact toughness than HTA and CAT structures and shifts the ductile-brittle transition to lower temperatures by 14 K and 32 K in comparison with HTA and CAT structures, respectively. However, DT structure has intermediate values of room temperature yield stress and ultimate tensile strength between those of CAT and HTA structures. When this steel was tempered at 300 and 400 C it underwent tempered martensite embrittlement associated with intergranular fracture. (orig.)