| Dual-phase steels have seen increased use in automotive applications in recent years, in order to meet the goals of weight reduction and occupant safety. Variations in nitrogen content that may be encountered in steel sourced from a basic oxygen furnace process compared to an electric arc furnace process require that dual-phase steel producers understand the ways that nitrogen affects processing and properties. In the current work, the distribution of nitrogen was investigated in a dual-phase steel with a base chemistry of 0.1 C, 2.0 Mn, 0.2 Cr, 0.2 Mo (wt pct) across a range of nitrogen contents (30-159 ppm) with Al (0.2 and 0.08 wt pct), and Ti (0.02 wt pct) additions used for precipitation control of nitrogen amounts. The distribution of nitrogen amongst trapping sites, including precipitates, grain boundaries, dislocations, and interstitial sites (away from other types of defects) was determined from a combination of electrolytic dissolution, internal friction, and three-dimensional atom probe tomography experiments. Various mechanisms by which different amounts and locations of nitrogen affect phase transformations and mechanical properties were identified from quantitative metallography, dilatometric measurement of phase transformations, tensile testing, and nanoindentation hardness testing. Results indicate nitrogen that is not precipitated with Ti or Al (free nitrogen) partitions to austenite (and thus martensite) during typical intercritical annealing treatments, and is mostly contained in Cottrell atmospheres in martensite. Due to the austenite stabilizing effect of nitrogen, the presence of free nitrogen during intercritical annealing leads to a higher austenite fraction in certain conditions. Thus, the presence of free nitrogen in a dual-phase microstructure will lead to an increase in tensile and yield strengths from both an increase in martensite fraction, and an increase in martensite hardness due to solid solution strengthening. Despite the presence of free nitrogen, no yield point elongation was detected in tensile stress-strain results, including after 80 °C aging treatments. This was likely due to the partitioning of nitrogen, such that the ferritic regions of the microstructure contained less nitrogen than is required to saturate the high dislocation density in ferrite. Measured tensile and yield strength sensitivities to free nitrogen content range between 7 and 13 GPa/wt pct N. |
