A Study of Graphitization of Free-Cutting Steel

Аннотация

An alternative for the traditional free-cutting steels, i.e., a graphitized steel, is suggested with allowance for the tendencies in design of free-cutting steels connected with reduction of the sulfur content and transfer to unleaded steels. The graphitization process due to inoculation of the steel with boron nitride (BN) is studied by metallography. Electron microscopy is used to determine the interaction between the boron nitride substrate and the graphite. The statistical relation between the content of the graphite phase and the duration of the graphitization process is used to show that the degree of graphitization is describable by the Avrami equation.