Time-Temperature-Transformation diagrams continuous cooling diagram

This critical cooling rate ( q ) has been estimated by use of isothermal time-temperature transformation ( IT T) diagrams (Uhhnann 1972) or continuous cooling transformation (CT) curves Onorato and Uhlmann 1976). 

Stmctures that form as a function of temperature and time on cooling for a steel of a given composition are usually represented graphically by continuous-cooling and isothermal-transformation diagrams. Another constituent that sometimes forms at temperatures below that for peadite is bainite, which consists of ferrite and Fe C, but in a less well-defined arrangement than peadite. There is not sufficient temperature and time for carbon atoms to diffuse long distances, and a rather poody defined acicular or feathery stmcture results. 

For a number of applications, particularly those associated with conditions of continuous cooling or heating, equilibrium is clearly never approached and calculations must be modified to take kinetic factors into account. For example, solidification rarely occurs via equilibrium, amorphous phases are formed by a variety of non-equilibrium processing routes and in solid-state transformations in low-alloy steels much work is done to understand time-temperature-transformation diagrams which are non-equilibrium in nature. The next chapter shows how CALPHAD methods can be extended to such cases. 

In summary, isothermal and continuous-cooling transformation diagrams are, in a sense, phase diagrams in which the parameter of time is introduced. Each is experimentally determined for an alloy of specified composition, the variables being temperature and time. These diagrams allow prediction of the microstructure after some time period for constant-temperature and continuous-cooling heat treatments, respectively. 

Isothermal transformation diagrams may be modified for continuous-cooling heat treatments isothermal transformation beginning and ending curves are shifted to longer times and lower temperatures (Figure 10.25). Intersections with these curves of continuous-cooling curves represent times at which the transformation starts and ceases. 

In this discussion of the microstructural development of iron-carbon alloys, it has been assumed that, upon cooling, conditions of metastable equilibrium have been continuously maintained that is, sufficient time has been allowed at each new temperature for any necessary adjustment in phase compositions and relative amounts as predicted from the Fe-FejC phase diagram. In most situations these cooling rates are impracti-cally slow and unnecessary in fact, on many occasions nonequilibrium conditions are desirable. Two nonequilibrium effects of practical importance are (1) the occurrence of phase changes or transformations at temperatures other than those predicted by phase boundary lines on the phase diagram, and (2) the existence at room temperature of nonequilibrium phases that do not appear on the phase diagram. Both are discussed in Chapter 10. 

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