Propriedades mecânicas e microestruturais de aços de alta resistência e baixa liga soldados

Abstract

In the present work we investigated the mechanical and microstructural proprieties of the ZSTE380 and DOGAL800 high strength low alloys steels (HSLA), comparing to the conventional ZAR230 steel, before and after welding. The main purpose is to detect possible modifications on these steels during the welding process, and to verify the possibility of replacing the conventional ZAR230 steel by one of the HSLAs. Since HSLA steels possess higher mechanical resistance, they can be used in less robust structures, which reduce the weight of the automobiles, and consequently reduce the emission of pollutant gases. We observed different extensions of the heat-affected zone for the three welded steels, with a higher extension in the DOGAL800 and the smaller extension in the ZAR230. Microstructural analysis revealed austenite grain growth in the heat-affected zone, in relation to the base metal in this region for the steels ZSTE380 and DOGAL800, becoming a remarkable increase of resistance due to martensite transformation. The most remarkable case happened in the DOGAL800, where we observed formation of low carbon martensite in the heat-affected zone, being this a harder phase of the steel, but with low ductility. The microhardness profiles indicated that it did not happen a significant change in hardness of the heat-affected zone of the ZAR230, while for the DOGAL800 it is observed a considerable increase in hardness, corroborating the hypothesis of martensite formation. The yield strength obtained form stress-strain curves didn?t revealed any significant differences between welded and without weld samples, if analyzed in a global way, but in a microtensile test, it would be reveled. The samples without weld submitted to the high-cycle fatigue test presented different fatigue resistance, where the DOGAL800 showed the greatest fatigue resistance, followed by the ZSTE380 and finally the ZAR230. However after the welding process we observed a significant reduction in the fatigue resistance of the HSLA steels, even below the ZAR230 resistance for tests above 1 million cycles. The results were explained relating the microstructure properties and the mechanical properties of the three steels, before and after welding.