Toughening and Hardening Limited Zone of High-Strength Steel through Geometrically Necessary Dislocation When Exposed to Electropulsing

The enhancement of both low-temperature impact toughness and the hardness of a high strength steel heat-affected zone (HAZ) is investigated by using high-density electropulsing (EP). The athermal and thermal effects of EP on HAZ microstructure and resultant mechanical properties were examined based on physical metallurgy by electron backscattered diffraction and on tests of hardness and impact toughness at −60 °C, respectively. EP parameters were carefully determined to avoid electro-contraction and excessive pollution of the base metal by using numerical simulation. The EP results show that the mean impact toughness and hardness of HAZ are 2.1 times and 1.4 times improved, respectively. In addition to the contribution of microstructure evolution, geometrically necessary dislocation (GND) is also a contributor with an increase of 1.5 times, against the slight decrease in dislocation line density and dislocation density. The mechanisms behind this selective evolution of dislocation components were correlated with the localized thermal cycle EP, i.e., the competition among thermo- and electro-plasticity, and work-hardening due to local thermal expansion. The selective evolution enables the local thermal cycle EP tailor the martensitic substructure that is most favorable for toughness and less for hardness. This selective span was limited within 4 mm for a 5 mm thick sample. The local thermal cycle EP is confirmed to be capable of enhancing in both toughness and hardness within a millimeter-scale region.