Alloy Characterization to Adapt Steels to Thixoforming: Study of a High Chromium High Carbon Steel

This paper deals with the examination of the influence of alloying elements on the thixoformability of a Cr steel. It focuses on the liquid fraction curves of different Cr steels with modifications of composition. The effect of composition modifications was observed. The solid fraction versus temperature has been obtained by a thermodynamics software (MTData) and by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), limited to low heating rates. MTData permits to obtain information on the influence of alloying elements, with the advantage of the possibility to change the chemical composition very easily. The DSC tests determine the influence of the heating rate on these curves.