Medium carbon fully pearlitic steel: microstructures and properties after wire drawing

ABSTRACT

In the current work, fully pearlitic microstructure was initially developed in a medium carbon steel by isothermal holding at different temperatures. Subsequently, these samples were drawn in laboratory scale wire-drawing machine without any intermediate heat treatment. Microstructures and mechanical properties of as-heat-treated and heat-treated plus drawn samples were characterised. The results were also compared with some commercially produced steel. It was found that the new steel can offer a very good wire drawing behaviour. The steel possesses a good combination of strength and ductility along with a high-value torsion, bending and reverse bending properties after drawn condition as well.

KEYWORDS:

• Fully pearlite
• hypo-eutectoid composition
• wire drawing
• cementite thickness
• work hardening
• torsion

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the management of Tata Steel (Europe) for allowing the authors to conduct and the work. The authors would also like to confirm that there is no conflict of interest in this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.