This work deals with the effect of austempering temperature and time on the microstructure and content of retained austenite of a selected cast steel assigned as a material used for frogs in railway crossovers. Bainitic cast steel was austempered at 400°C, 450°C and 500°C for two selected times (0.5 h, 4.0 h) to study the evolution of the microstructure and retained austenite content. The microstructure was characterized by optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction analyses (XRD), and hardness tests. Phase transformations during and after austempering were determined by dilatometric methods.
The increase in isothermal temperature causes an increase in time to start of bainitic transformation from 0.25 to 1.5 s. However, another increase in temperature to 500°C shifts the incubation time to as much as 11 s. The time after which the transformations have ended at individual temperatures is similar and equal to about 300 s (6 min.). The dilatation effects are directly related to the amount of bainite formation. Based on these we can conclude that the temperature effect in the case of cast steel is inversely proportional to the amount of bainite formed. The largest effect can be distinguished in the case of the sample austempered at 400°C and the smallest at 500°C. Summarizing the dilatometric results, we can conclude that an increase in austempering temperature causes an increase in austenite stability. In other words, the chemical composition lowers (shifts to lower temperatures) the range of bainite transformation. It is possible that at higher austempering temperatures we will receive only stable austenite without any transformation. This is indicated by the hatched area in Figure 4b. This means that the heat treatment of cast steel into bainite is limited on both sides by martensitic transformation and the range of stable austenite. The paper attempts to estimate the content of retained austenite with X-ray diffraction.
Dielectric properties of a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) mixture ZhK-1282 were investigated in the frequency range of 102–106 Hz and a temperature range of −20 to 80°С. On the basis of the Debye’s relaxation polarization model dielectric spectra of temperature dependence of the orientational relaxation time τ and the dielectric strength δe were numerically approximated at the parallel orientation of a molecular director relative to alternating electric field. Influence of ester components in the mixture plays crucial role in relaxation processes at low temperature and external field frequency. The activation energy of the relaxation process of a rotation of molecules around their short axis was measured in a temperature interval of −20 to +15°С in which the dispersion of a longitudinal component of the dielectric constant takes place. The energy of potential barrier for polar molecules rotation in the mesophase was calculated. The value of the transition entropy from the nematic to isotropic phase was obtained from this calculation. The values of the coefficient of molecular friction and rotational diffusion were obtained by different methods. The experimental data obtained are in a satisfactory agreement with the existing theoretical models.