The control of grain boundary segregation and segregation-induced brittleness in iron by the application of a magnetic field

Recycling of iron and steel becomes an universally important issue from the viewpoint of energy and resource saving. Impurity elements like Sn and Cu tend to accumulate in steels by repeated recycling and remarkably degrade mechanical properties of recycled iron alloys due to segregation-induced intergranular embrittlement. The goal of this work is to study the potential of magnetic annealing for the control of grain boundary segregation and intergranular embrittlement in iron alloy. This paper reports several important findings regarding the effect of magnetic annealing on segregation-induced brittleness in iron-tin alloy. Of particular importance is the observations that the concentration of tin at grain boundaries in iron is decreased by magnetic annealing and fracture toughness of iron-tin alloy is drastically improved to the level as high as pure iron. (C) 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.