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A Study on the Microstructures and Toughness of Fe-B Cast Alloy Containing Rare Earth

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Abstract

This study investigates the effect of cerium on the microstructures, mechanical properties of medium carbon Fe-B cast alloy. The as-cast microstructure of Fe-B cast alloy consists of the eutectic boride, pearlite, and ferrite. Compared with the coarse eutectic borides in the unmodified alloy, the eutectic boride structures in the modified alloy are greatly refined. Cerium promotes the formation of Ce2O3 phase. Ce2O3 can act as effective heterogeneous nuclei of primary austenite, and refine austenite and boride. After heat treatment, the impact toughness of the modified alloy is higher than that of the unmodified alloy because there are more broken borides in the modified alloy. Meanwhile, the fracture mechanism of medium carbon Fe-B alloy is depicted and analyzed by using fractography.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Scientific Research Program Funded by Shaanxi Provincial Education Department (2013JK0919), the Research Foundation of Xi’an University of Science and Technology (2013QDJ026, 2012QDJ034, and 201202), and National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant (51274016 and 51301128). Moreover, the authors also thank the financial support for this work from the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China under Grant (20110201130008), the National Science Foundation for Post-doctoral Scientists of China under Grants (2012M521767 and 2013T60875), Shaanxi provincial post-doctoral research project, and the Fundamental Research Funds of Xi’an Jiaotong University under Grant (XJJ2013038).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an University of Science and Technology, 58 Yanta Road, Xi’an, 710054, Shaanxi Province, People’s Republic of China

    Dawei Yi & Zhiyun Zhang

  2. Research Institute of Advance Materials Processing Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, People’s Republic of China

    Hanguang Fu

  3. Foundry, Zibo Diesel Engine Company, Zibo, 255077, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China

    Chengyan Yang

  4. State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, Shaanxi Province, People’s Republic of China

    Shengqiang Ma & Yefei Li

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  1. Dawei Yi
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  2. Zhiyun Zhang
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Correspondence to Dawei Yi.

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Yi, D., Zhang, Z., Fu, H. et al. A Study on the Microstructures and Toughness of Fe-B Cast Alloy Containing Rare Earth. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 24, 626–634 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-014-1331-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-014-1331-y

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