Effect of microstructure on formation of ductile fracture surface in steel plate

In recent years, high strength steel plates for building and pipelines have been required to improve ductile fracture properties, assuming ground deformation in earthquake-prone region. The ductile fracture is performed by the result from coalescence of micro-voids followed by the nucleation and growth[1]. Fractured surface morphology reflects the void coalescence process, so it is important to consider the relationship between the fracture surface morphology and the micro-voids formation beneath the fractured surface to consider the ductile fracture properties. The voids nucleate sites are mainly particles such as inclusions or precipitates, and grain boundries. These voids grow and coalesce according to three modes. The first mode is directly coalescence of voids followed by growth[2]. The second one is the coalescence of voids caused by shear deformation followed by internal necking between voids[3]. The third one is the coalescence of voids caused by micro-voids nucleation in shear band between two larger voids[4]. It is expected that these modes influence local elongation property which is one of the indices for ductile fracture property through the formation of fractured surface. In this study, local deformation energy which is measured by load-displacement curve in tensile test is examined by focusing the voids nucleation, growth and coalescence, for high tensile strength plates of TS480-830MPa which is controlled by the microstructure through the cooling rate of heat treatment. The deformation energy is useful to consider the ductile fracture property of steel plates which have a different tensile strength.