Effect of low temperature aging on hall-petch coefficient in ferritic steels containing a small amount of carbon and nitrogen

Effect of aging treatment at 373 K on Hall-Petch coefficient (ky) was investigated in consideration of the change in friction stress associated with carbide/nitride precipitation in ferritic steels containing 60 ppm carbon or nitrogen (C60 and N60). Tensile tests revealed that the ky was monotonously increased with increasing aging time in both steels, and also, C60 exhibited a larger ky value than that of N60 under the same aging time. As a result of 3DAP analysis and theoretical calculation for grain boundary segregation of carbon and nitrogen, the ky corresponded to the amount of carbon and nitrogen existing at grain boundary. There was no difference in the effect on ky increment between both elements. The larger ky in C60 under the same aging condition was due to the larger amount of segregated carbon compared with nitrogen.