This Inter-American Materials Collaboration brings together two groups led by John Speer at the Colorado School of Mines and Fernando Rizzo at the Pontificia Universidade Catolica in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The project investigates novel steel microstructures developed through carbon partitioning. The concept is based on a new thermodynamic model that has been developed to understand carbon partitioning between martensite and retained austenite. The model to describe the endpoint of partitioning is new, and defines the conditions under which carbon reaches a uniform chemical potential in the two phases, while the martensite/austenite interface remains stationary (implying complete immobility of iron atoms). A number of important potential applications for this new concept are identified, along with fundamental implications related to the mechanism of bainite transformation in steels.
The education of US student participants is enriched through the interactions with academia and industry in Brazil. Students benefit generally from the research, publishing, and external interactions associated with this work, and are educated for employment in an academic or industrial research setting. The project is expected to lead to important developments that will be incorporated into physical metallurgy curricula at the participating universities and elsewhere, and should provide results that can lead to novel alloying/processing approaches that can be employed for a variety of important steel applications. Collaboration with PUC-Rio allows the US investigators to maintain a relationship with one of the highest regarded physical metallurgy groups in Brazil, which is located nearby to the largest steel producer in that country. This award is supported by the Division of Materials Research, the Office of International Science and Engineering, and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences.
