Search

It is well known the effectiveness of ausforming on increasing the dislocation density of fresh martensite. This work demonstrates, using atom probe tomography, that this increase in the dislocation density has a strong influence on the nucleation of nanoprecipitates during tempering. Therefore, ausforming might be a powerful processing route for the two-fold improvement of ferritic/martensitic steels where creep resistance is of paramount importance. Firstly, ausforming refines the martensitic microstructure (high strength and toughness), and secondly, it increases the number density of thermally stable nanoprecipitates (creep resistance)., Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) in the form of a Coordinate Project (MAT2016-80875-C3-1-R). APT has been conducted at ORNL's Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which is a U.S. DOE Office of Science User Facility. The authors are grateful to Mr. Miguel Angel Acedo for the dilatometer tests undertaken at the Phase Transformation laboratory of CENIM. J. Vivas acknowledges financial support in the form of a FPI Grant BES-2014-069863. This work contributes to the Joint Programme on Nuclear Materials (JPNM) of the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA).