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MORE EFFICIENT
STRENGTHENING FROM SMALLER PRECIPITATES
When Nitrovan®
vanadium is added to steel, vanadium preferentially combines with
nitrogen to form nitrogen-rich vanadium-carbonitride precipitates.
The nucleation rate of these precipitates increases at higher
nitrogen contents and produces a large number of small particles,
as shown below. These small precipitates provide more efficient
strengthening, reducing vanadium additions.
For example,
increasing the nitrogen content from 80 to 160 parts per million
reduces the particle diameter by half but increases the number
of particles eight times. The larger number of small precipitates
gives more efficient strengthening by reducing the distance between
particles.
As
a result, the greater number of smaller vanadium-carbonitride
precipitates formed by Nitrovan® vanadium strengthens
steel more efficiently than the coarser vanadium-carbide precipitates
formed by ferrovanadium.
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