Study of Influence of Heat Treatment on Cyclic Properties of L21HMF Cast Steel

This work presents the results of studies of CrMoV cast steel after long-term service and after regenerative heat treatment (RHT). The cast steel was investigated in the conditions of static and changeable load. The tests were carried out at room temperature and 550 °C. The fatigue lifetime curves were determined and described using the Basquin-Manson-Coffin relationship. It has been shown that the cast steel after RHT is characterized by smaller range of plastic strain and bigger range of stress amplitude, with the same value of total strain, compared with the cast steel after service. For the cast steel after RHT, the observed fatigue properties were different in comparison with the cast steel after service at small and large strains. At room temperature (20 °C) and at elevated temperature (550 °C), there is an increase in the life of samples of the cast steel after RHT in comparison with the samples of the cast steel after service only in the area of large strains (ε _ac > 1.2%). For small strains ε _ac < 0.50%, the life of the cast steel after RHT at the examined temperatures is shorter than that of the cast steel after service. The paper shows that regardless of an explicit improvement in the strength properties (the static and cyclic ones), as a result of the performed RHT, a complete improvement in the fatigue properties of the cast steel does not occur.