MICRESS Forum

Hello,
I am a beginner and would like to ask you some questions about MICRESS

First of all, I want to simulate quenching and partitioning through MICRESS, but I don't know much about the program, so I hope to get your advice.
Secondly, I want to simulate martensite formation and determine the volume fraction during quenching.
Finally, during partitioning to determine the C endpoint is my last step.

Could you please help me with how to proceed with which of the example?. and is it possible to simulate martensitic transformations

Dear Vinola,

Welcome to the MICRESS Forum!

Quenching is, in principle, a process of fast cooling to a certain temperature. You can model that in MICRESS either by assuming a high cooling rate or a temperature jump to the end temperature. The cooling process can also be analyzed in more detail by taking into account the effect of latent heat or even set up a simplified 1d-temperature problem.

What happens to the microstructure during quenching depends on your alloy, the initial microstructure, and the cooling conditions. If you have a phase transformation, you will get more or less solute redistribution depending on the cooling rate. In MICRESS we always assume local (quasi-)equilibrium, i.e. a parallel tangent construction to the Gibbs energy curves, to obtain the equilibrium phase compositions. However, measurable segregation requires sufficient time for diffusion also.

Your alloy may be some steel, as you mention martensite. The formation of martensite presents a serious problem for simulation, because it forms under so high cooling rates that no quasi-equilibrium condition exists anymore. Moreover, there is no phase transformation in the classical sense (moving interface), and martensite is also not a stable phase (i.e. it is also not defined in any thermodynamic database). How martensite formation can nevertheless be handled in MICRESS has been discussed in here.

Bernd