In: Mechanical Engineering
1045 Steel (quenched specimen)
Draw a picture of what you think the microstructure would look like and label the constituents (martensite, ferrite, cementite or whatever you expect to find in this quenched specimen). Include the figure number.
Quenching means that austenite is rapidly cooled to room temperature so that martensite is formed. It is having a body centred tetragonal shape and is hardest, strongest and brittle among steel alloys. These properties are attributed to the fewer slip systems in this crystal structure.Martensite is formed byvdiffusion less transformation anmartensite grains take needle like structure and remaining phase is untransformed austenite.
The martensite is a single phase material and microstructure of tempered martensite is shown below.