Non-isothermal kinetics model to predict accurate phase transformation and hardness of 22MnB5 boron steel

A non-isothermal phase transformation kinetics model obtained by modifying the well-known JMAK approach is proposed for application to a low carbon boron steel (22MnB5) sheet. In the modified kinetics model, the parameters are functions of both temperature and cooling rate, and can be identified by a numerical optimization method. Moreover, in this approach the transformation start and finish temperatures are variable instead of the constants that depend on chemical composition. These variable reference temperatures are determined from the measured CCT diagram using dilatation experiments. The kinetics model developed in this work captures the complex transformation behavior of the boron steel sheet sample accurately. In particular, the predicted hardness and phase fractions in the specimens subjected to a wide range of cooling rates were validated by experiments.