Effect of Electropulsing on the Microstructure evolution of pearlitic steel

Abstract

This work aims to model the thermodynamic impact of electropulsing. Theoretical modeling for electromagnetic and thermodynamics of electropulsing is done. Simulation study for ferrite cementite system is carried out. It suggested that electropulsing can transform cementite plates into nano sized particles at room temperature.To prove the theory, fully pearlite steel wires are severely plastically deformed to generate non equilibrium state to promote effect of electropulsing. Afterwards, single high density pulse was used, which resulted in cementite particles in less than a millisecond time at room temperature as predicted by theoretical analysis. Afterwards, X-ray diffraction, microscopy, resistivity measurement and hardness testing is done to characterize the changes by electropulsing treatment.This work proposes a powerful way to design and achieve normally hard to obtain microstructures by altering the thermodynamics of phase transformation by using electropulsing as done in pearlitic system.