Phase transformations in steels under controlled quenching in magnetic fluid

Abstract

In this paper, structures and related mechanical properties of some tool steels subjected to quench-cooling in a magnetic fluid with a different concentration of the magnetic phase under a steady magnetic field of different intensity are studied. The goal of the research is to find out how the cooling modes of steel samples, found in previously published papers, in a magnetic fluid subject to magnetic fields of varying intensity affect the steel structure. The possibility of controlled quenching in a magnetic fluid is determined by the dependence of the cooling intensity on the fluid composition, on the magnitude and degree of the magnetic field uniformity near the cooled surface. Varying cooling intensity determines different mechanisms of phase transformations in steel in the quenching pro- cess. The possibility to obtain a significant variety of structural components in quenched steel samples has been experimentally proved. For the quenching process, only one mag- netic fluid was used which varied the intensity of the applied external magnetic field. It is known that traditional quenching allows obtaining different structural components in hardening steels only by complex selection of different quenching media