Mechanosynthesis of High-Nitrogen Steels Strengthened by Secondary Titanium Nitrides.

The solid-phase mechanical synthesis of high-nitrogen ferritic and austenitic steel composites in the course of mechanical activation in a ball mill is studied by the method of Mössbauer spectroscopy and electron microscopy. For mechanical alloying, mixtures of iron alloys doped with transition metals (Ni, Cr, Mn, and Ti) and nitrides with low stability to deformation (CrN and MnN) were used. The correlation between the phase-concentration composition of the mechanically synthesized samples and the heat of formation of transition metal nitrides, which are part of the initial metal mixtures, is investigated.

Critical Redistribution of Nitrogen in the Austenitic Cr-Mn Steel under Severe Plastic Deformation.

A narrow temperature range of changes in the mechanism and kinetics of structural-phase transformations during mechanical alloying under deformation in rotating Bridgman anvils was determined by the methods of Mössbauer spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and mechanical tests in the high-nitrogen chromium-manganese steel FeMnCrN. The experimentally established temperature region is characterized by a change in the direction of nitrogen redistribution-from an increase in the N content in the metal matrix during cold deformation to a decrease with an increase in the temperature and degree of severe plastic deformation. The change in the direction of nitrogen redistribution is due to the acceleration of the decomposition of a nitrogen-supersaturated solid solution of austenite with the formation of secondary nanocrystalline nitrides.