In this paper, friction and wear tests were carried out: 45# steel (carbon steel) was rubbed with aluminum bronze, aluminum bronze-based inlaid solid self-lubricating bearing (ISSLB) material, tin bronze, and tin bronze-based ISSLB material under different loads. The friction and wear properties (friction coefficient, wear amount and friction temperature) of the above four materials were studied. The friction and wear properties of the new self-lubricating bearing material and the traditional copper alloy under the same load were compared. The friction mechanism of each material in the friction process was discussed. The effect and mechanism of C-MoS₂ composite solid lubricant on friction and wear properties were analyzed. Under the experimental loads of 100 to 500 N, the average friction coefficients of aluminum bronze-based ISSLB material were maintained in the range of 0.18~0.14, while the average friction coefficients of tin bronze-based ISSLB material were maintained between 0.26~0.20, which is much lower than those of copper alloy. The wear amounts of tin bronze-based ISSLB material were always in the range of 14.7~34.4 mg, which were much less than those of aluminum bronze-based ISSLB materials and copper alloy. The results show that the copper-based ISSLB materials possess excellent wear resistance, and the friction and wear properties of tin bronze-based ISSLB material are better than that of aluminum bronze-based ISSLB material. Therefore, if the copper-based ISSLB materials are applied to self-lubricating bearings, the friction and wear resistance of bearings will be greatly improved and the service life of bearings prolonged.

In this paper, the effects of the heating temperature and holding time on the austenite grain growth of SCM435 steel were studied and analyzed in terms of the average, macro-axis and minor-axis size of the grains. The results indicated that the classical Sellars model was highly consistent for describing the growth stage of the new austenite but poorly described the initial nucleation-growth stage and stability stage of the austenite. A new model that expresses the average austenite grain growth of SCM435 steel was developed, and the values calculated based on this model were highly consistent with the actual measured values. The standard deviation and expected grain-size expressions increased as the heating temperature and holding time increased. The macro-axis and minor-axis size of the grains were linearly correlated with the average size, and the ratio of the macro-axis to the minor-axis size remained generally constant during grain growth. Furthermore, this paper provides a new way of thinking about heredity in materials science from the perspective of mathematical characteristics.

In this study, a multi-element microalloyed GCr15Si1MoNbV bainitic bearing steel was designed by adding trace amounts of Nb and V. The bainite/martensite/retained austenite/undissolved carbide multiphase bearing steel with a short heat-treated cycle and remarkable comprehensive mechanical properties was prepared via low-temperature austempering, which was compared with a traditional quenched and tempered martensitic microstructure. The results showed that the comprehensive mechanical properties of the low-temperature bainitic microstructure of the Nb/V microalloyed bearing steel were better than those of a traditional tempered martensitic microstructure. In addition, as the isothermal temperature increased, the impact toughness of experimental steel was significantly improved, and the hardness decreased slightly. The tensile strength was improved with the increase in isothermal time. As the isothermal temperature increased, the bainite content of the experimental steel rose, and the stability of the retained austenite enhanced due to more carbon atoms being partitioned into it. The research work in this paper made a preliminary exploration for the application of Nb/V microalloyed bainitic bearing steel in the bearing field and provided some basic data for reference.

To solve the instability of liquid steel in the continuous casting process and the inconsistent flaw detection of heavy rail steel, steel flow control was studied numerically in a tundish with a porous baffle wall by using the fluid dynamics software Fluent. The opening plan of the baffle wall was improved through orthogonal optimization of the design of the holes in the porous baffle wall. The test condition was set to a left inclination angle of α₁ = 22°, a right inclination angle of α₂ = 48°, an upward elevation angle of β = 30°, and an aperture of d = 70 mm. The simulation results of the optimization scheme showed that the uniformity of the flow and temperature fields had been significantly improved, and the flow in each strand became consistent. The maximum temperature difference was 21 K in the tundish, and the maximum temperature difference of three outlets was only 1.7 K. Dead zone volume was reduced by 10.0% compared to the original tundish, and plug flow volume was increased by 14.2%. Comparing the removal efficiency of Al₂O₃ inclusions of different size, the results showed that the removal efficiency of 10 μm and 30 μm smaller inclusions was above 87%. The removal rate of ≥50 μm larger inclusions also remained about 95%.

Al₂O₃, Al₂O₃·TiN, Al₂O₃·MgO, and CaO·2Al₂O₃ are four different types of inclusions in high Al steels. To improve the steel cleanness level, the effective removal of such inclusions during secondary refining is very important, so these inclusions should be removed effectively via inclusion dissolution in the slag. The dissolution behavior of Al₂O₃, Al₂O₃·TiN, Al₂O₃·MgO, and CaO·2Al₂O₃ in CaO-SiO₂-Al₂O₃-MgO slags, as well as the steel-slag reaction, was investigated using laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM) and high-temperature furnace experiments, and thermodynamic calculations for the inclusion in steel were carried out by FactSage 7.1. The results showed that Al₂O₃·TiN was observed to be completely different from the other oxides. The composite oxides dissolved quickly in the slags, and the dissolution time of the inclusions increased as their melting point increased. SiO₂ and B₂O₃ in the slag were almost completely reacted with [Al] in steel, so the slags without SiO₂ showed a positive effect for avoiding the formation of Al₂O₃ system inclusions and promoting inclusions dissolution as compared with SiO₂-rich slags. The steel-slag reaction was also found to influence the inclusion types in steel significantly. Because of the rapid absorption of different inclusions in the slag, it was found that the dissolution time of inclusions mainly depends on the diffusion in the molten slag.

In this paper, a new low-carbon alloy gear steel is designed via Si/Al alloying. The carburizing and austempering, at a temperature slightly higher than the martensitic transformation point (Ms) of the surface and much lower than the Ms of the core, for different times, were carried out on the newly designed gear steel. After heat treatment, a series of different microstructures (superfine bainitic ferrite + retained austenite, superfine bainitic ferrite + martensite + retained austenite, and martensite + retained austenite) were obtained on the surface, whilst the low-carbon lath martensitic microstructure was obtained in the core. The microstructure of the surface was examined using optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The phase composition was analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD). The hardness and wear resistance of the surface as well as the hardness distribution of carburizing layer of the samples with different microstructures were studied. The results show that the Si/Al-rich gear steel, after carburizing and austempering at 200 °C for 8 h, not only has excellent mechanical properties but also has high wear resistance, which meets the technical requirements of heavy-duty gear steel. The research work in this paper can provide a data reference for the application of carburized steel with mixed microstructures of bainitic ferrite and martensite in the design of heavy-duty gear.