Micrograph 292 and full record
- Micrograph no
- 292
- Brief description
- Fe, C 0.4 (wt%) steel, quenched, martensitic and quench cracks
- Keywords
- alloy , carbon, iron, martensite , metal, quenching , steel
- Categories
- Metal or alloy
- System
- Fe-C-X
- Composition
- Fe, C 0.4 (wt%)
- Standard codes
- Reaction
- Processing
- Quenched
- Applications
- Sample preparation
- Nital
- Technique
- Reflected light microscopy
- Length bar
- 200 μm
- Further information
- The steel has been rapidly quenched. This leads to a rapid volume change due to thermal expansion. In this case the steel has been unable to plastically deform to accommodate this change. This leads to the nucleation of cracks in the metal. This is exacerbated by the fact that the quenching of steel promotes the formation of the brittle phase martensite.
- Contributor
- Dr R F Cochrane
- Organisation
- Department of Materials, University of Leeds
- Date
- 04/09/02
- Licence for re-use
- Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
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