Holding Time Influence on the Hot Ductility Behavior of a Continuously Cast Low Alloy Steel

Cracking during the continuous casting process is undesirable and continuous work is being carried out to find further improvements and understand the mechanisms that lead to failure. Investigations on the hot ductility behavior of a continuously cast low alloyed steel using different holding times before straining were done in the present work. Samples were heated to melting temperature in a vacuum atmosphere and then cooled to one of the three test temperatures chosen: 750, 850, and 900 ^◦C. When the desired temperature was reached, the sample was isothermally held for either 10, 90, 300, or 3600 s before the tensile test started, with a strain rate of 10 ⁻³ s ⁻¹ . The reduction of area was measured, SEM images of the fractured surfaces were taken plus LOM images for the analysis of the microstructure. The results show that there was no significant change in the ductility at any of the temperatures until 300 s, with a change in behavior at 3600 s. This was further confirmed with the images and precipitation kinetics simulations. The results are described and compared.