Slow Bainite: an Opportunity to Determine the Carbon Content of the Bainitic Ferrite during Growth.

Abstract

The amount of carbon in solid solution in bainitic ferrite at the early stage of transformation has been directly determined by atom probe tomography at 200 ºC, taking advantage of the extremely slow transformation kinetics of a novel nanocrystalline steel. Results demonstrated that the original bainitic ferrite retains much of the carbon content of the parent austenite providing strong evidence that bainite transformation is essentially displacive in nature.