Abstract
The low-cycle fatigue behavior of a quenched and tempered Nb-bearing high-strength low-alloy steel heat treated to give tempered martensitic microstructures presumably with and without fine niobium carbides was studied by transmission electron microscopy, stress relaxation, X-ray diffraction line broadening and strain-controlled fatigue testing. The steel without the niobium carbides cyclically softened rapidly at all strain amplitudes studied. This softening was attributed to the rearrangement of the dislocation substructure into a cell structure and to the accompanying decrease in internal stress. The steel presumably containing the fine niobium carbides cyclically softened to a lesser extent. This correlated with the observation that dislocations in this steel did not rearrange themselves into a cell structure and, hence, there was less change in the internal stress during cycling. The steel without the niobium carbides exhibited somewhat better strain-life behavior at large strain amplitudes. This was attributed to the cell structure being able to acccommodate a greater amount of plastic strain in that steel.28 refs.--AA