ALLOY STEEL – PROPERTIES AND USE Edited by Eduardo Valencia Morales Alloy Steel – Properties and Use Edited by Eduardo Valencia Morales Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. As for readers, this license allows users to download, copy and build upon published chapters even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. Notice Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published chapters. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Romana Vukelic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer InTech Design Team Image Copyright bluecrayola, 2010. Used under license from Shutterstock.com First published December, 2011 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from [email protected] Alloy Steel – Properties and Use, Edited by Eduardo Valencia Morales p. cm. ISBN: 978-953-307-484-9 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Contents Preface IX Part 1 Stainless Steels: New Approaches and Usages 1 Chapter 1 Alloy Steel: Properties and Use First-Principles Quantum Mechanical Approach to Stainless Steel Alloys 3 L. Vitos, H.L. Zhang, S. Lu, N. Al-Zoubi, B. Johansson, E. Nurmi, M. Ropo, M. P. J. Punkkinen and K. Kokko Chapter 2 Review – Metallic Bipolar Plates and Their Usage in Energy Conversion Systems 29 J. Richards and K. Schmidt Part 2 New Insight in Microalloyed and Low-Alloy Steels 51 Chapter 3 Comments About the Strengthening Mechanisms in Commercial Microalloyed Steels and Reaction Kinetics on Tempering in Low-Alloy Steels 53 Eduardo Valencia Morales Chapter 4 Effect of Niobium on HAZ Toughness of HSLA Steels 87 E. El-Kashif and T. Koseki Part 3 Behaviour of Steels: Influence of the Enviroments 109 Chapter 5 Environmentally Assisted Cracking Behavior of Low Alloy Steels in Simulated BWR Coolant Conditions 111 J. Y. Huang, J. J. Yeh, J. S. Huang and R. C. Kuo Chapter 6 Influence of Dissolved Hydrogen on Stress Corrosion Cracking Susceptibility of Nickel Based Weld Alloy 182 131 Luciana Iglésias Lourenço Lima, Mônica Maria de Abreu Mendonça Schvartzman, Marco Antônio Dutra Quinan, Célia de Araújo Figueiredo and Wagner Reis da Costa Campos VI Contents Chapter 7 SMAW Process in Terms of the Amount of Oxygen 155 Węgrzyn Tomasz Chapter 8 Advanced Austenitic Heat-Resistant Steels for Ultra-Super-Critical (USC) Fossil Power Plants 171 Chengyu Chi, Hongyao Yu and Xishan Xie Part 4 Fatigue in Steels: From the Basic to New Concepts 201 Chapter 9 Metal Fatigue and Basic Theoretical Models: A Review 203 S. Bhat and R. Patibandla Chapter 10 A New Systemic Study Regarding the Behaviour of Some Alloy Steels During Low Cycles Fatigue Process 237 Macuta Silviu Preface The main objective of this book is to show, in a logical sequence, a set of papers presenting new ideas that have been the result of the great advance in the knowledge of steel within the last few decades. Amongst the fundamental topics dealt with is the relationship between steel's properties in terms of its structure and composition and how this is affected by its surrounding environment (i.e. stresses, temperature, strains, etc.). It is not possible to affirm that one knows all the links of this chain with details. But today, thanks to significant technological and theoretical advances, we know the enough to understand the most important phenomena that take place in these according to its uses. In this sense, a number of well-known specialists have consented to write on the various principal branches in this subject and the editor has been responsible for preserving a basic unit among the expert contributions. Each section is devoted to new approaches and usages of the stainless steels, the influence of the environments on the behavior of some class of steels, new structural concepts to understand some fatigue processes and new insight on strengthening mechanisms and toughness in micro-alloyed steels. The kinetics during tempering in low-alloy steels is also discussed through a new set-up that uses a modified Avrami formalism. And each section contains an updated list of references which will allow to the readers to delve further into a particular subject. I am grateful to the authors for their courtesy and patience, and hope that through their efforts this book earns its place alongside the more cited books about alloy steels. Finally, I should like here to acknowledge the sustained helpfulness and dedication of the publisher's staff, in particular of Ms. Romana Vukelic by its insistence for concluding this interesting project. Dr. E. V. Morales Department of Physics, Central University of Las Villas, Villa Clara Cuba
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