Technology & Steel Application - News

Posted on 12 Mar 2013

Industrial Research Chair in Forming Technologies of High Strength Alloys

The team at the Industrial Research Chair in Forming Technologies of High Strength Alloys (CM2P) will study this industrial challenge in a comprehensive manner by using a micro-macro and multiscale approach and by considering the influence of manufacturing parameters on microstructure evolution and the resulting impact on service properties. (Credit Photo @ Sorel Forge)

High-strength alloys are commonly used to manufacture critical parts for the transportation, energy-production, and mining industries (including, for example, turbine drive shafts, windturbine gears, stabilizers for drilling rigs, and cutter shafts for the mining sector). The service properties of these alloys are very sensitive to the primary forming operations (i.e. ingot casting) as well as to the secondary forming operations such as forging and quench & temper heat treatment. The interactions between the large number of alloying elements, characteristic of these alloys, and the multiple thermomechanical processing parameters such as time, temperature, strain and strain rate have a strong influence on the evolution of the microstructure and hence the final properties of manufactured parts. These complex interactions make it difficult to obtain targeted properties in a systematic manner. From an industrial standpoint, this difficulty results in more conservative design, higher  onconformity rates, and shorter life cycles for manufactured components. These problems are further enhanced when new processes or higher performance alloys are developed. The team at the Industrial Research Chair in Forming Technologies of High Strength Alloys (CM2P) will study this industrial challenge in a comprehensive manner by using a micro-macro and multiscale approach and by considering the influence of manufacturing parameters on microstructure evolution and the resulting impact on service properties.

The Chair’s activities will revolve around two main research objectives:

• To understand the influence of manufacturing parameters at high temperature and develop models to  simulate conditions encountered in industrial practice.
• To identify the micromechanisms responsible for the evolution of mechanical properties of manufactured parts under industrial working conditions

Optimization of current manufacturing processes, development of new alloys and new thermomechanical processes using high temperature deformation testing with a view to mapping microstructure evolution in the investigated materials.

• Determination of the kinetics of phase transformation; static, dynamic, and metadynamic recrystallization, precipitation kinetics of secondary phases (before and after phase transformation).
• Study of the influence of the strain path and crystalline texture on behaviour during the manufacturing process.

 Development of reliable methods enabling realistic prediction of mechanical behaviour during the various stages of the manufacturing process.

• Identification of micro-mechanisms responsible for the presence of microstructural  heterogeneity which result in the deterioration of mechanical  properties.
•  Development of simulation tools in order to accurately predict the occurrence  of microstructural heterogeneities based on thermodynamics and  kinetics studies.
•  Development of constitutive equations to predict microstructure evolution  to predict and control the macroscopic behaviour.
•  Development and industrial application of reliable and realistic simulation  models for forging and heat treatments processes.

 Source : Sorel Forge