Institute of Metals Division - The Growth of Austenite into Ferrite in the Iron-Nitrogen System

The morphology of the nucleation and growth of austenite into high-purity iron in NH3-H2, gas mixtzires has been studied. The growth rate of an austenitic rim (planar interface) from scratched surfaces of- polycrystalline iron specimens was determined as a function of temperature and percent NH3 and found to he in reasonahle agreement with growth-rate calculations based on a model which assumes the diffusion of nitrogen to he the rate-controlling step. Under certain conditions, austenite pew as platelets; growth rates of these along the surface of single crystals were found to he dependent on surface preparation, orientation, THE development of microstructures can conveniently be thought of in terms of nucleation and growth. The complex topic of nucleation in solid-solid transformations will not be discussed at length, although a few qualitative experiments were performed. Growth is determined by the mobility of the various possible interfaces under the available driving forces in a particular situation. In homophase transformations, it has been clearly demonstrated that the mobility is very sensitive to small amounts of impurities, to the kind of impurity, and to the orientation relations across the boundary.' A degree of quantitative knowledge has temperature and percent NH3. On electropolished surfaces with a (110) pole, the maximum growth rate of platelets was determined and found to be in agreement within a factor of 2 to 3 with theoretical calculations of the edgewise growth rate of a platelet. The calculations are based on a model which assumes that the diffusion of nitrogen in the ferrite in front of the moving curved attstenitic interface at the tip of the platelet is the rate-controlling step. The growth direction on the surface of the single crystal and resztlting habit plane of the platelets were determined and found not to he unique but to vary systematically with the pole of the surface. been obtained. In the case of heterophase transformations, which are significantly more complicated to treat, a comparison of theoretical and experimental studies often shows rather poor agreement.'-' The main purpose of the experiments discussed below was to obtain additional quantitative data on crystallographic effects on boundary mobility in a system which was otherwise as simple as possible, viz. the growth of iron-nitrogen austenite into fer-rite. In the course of the experiments, it became necessary to re-examine the theory for the growth of Widmanstatten plates, especially the influence of anisotropic interfacial free energy. Some other minor experiments in the Fe-N system were performed, and are described briefly. EXPERIMENTAL METHODS A) Material Preparation. The floating zone purified iron used for this investigation was supplied by Battelle Memorial Institute. The nominal composi-