Temperature effects on the static and dynamic fracture behaviors of low-silicon CA-15 tempered stainless steel castings

Abstract In this research we studied the effect of testing temperature on both static and dynamic fracturing behaviors of low-silicon CA-15 martensitic stainless steel (MSS) castings after austenitizing and tempering treatments. The results showed that the material’s microstructure was influenced by heat treatment and various testing temperatures would cause different fracturing mechanisms. In static tensile tests, the 573–673 K tempered specimens occurred secondary strengthening at 423 K and 298 K testing temperatures. However, there is a contrast of weakening occurred at 123 K for the same type of tempered samples. The phenomenon was mainly triggered by local cracking at the ferrite/martensitic interface and incoherent precipitate site in the materials because of the existence of shrinkage stress under subzero temperature. In the dynamic strain-rate tests, impact embrittlement occurred in the 573–673 K tempered samples as a result of the tempered martensite embrittlement (TME) phenomenon. The ductile-to-brittle transition temperature (DBTT) of the tempered material was obviously lower than that of the as-cast material. Also, optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were performed to correlate the properties attained to the microstructural observation.