The Low‐Temperature Precipitation of Carbides Induced by Deformation and its Effect on Residual Stress

The precipitation of carbides is a key mechanism for residual stress relaxation, and the induced low‐temperature precipitation of carbides is crucial for the preparation of low‐stress, high‐performance materials. This article investigates the precipitation behavior of ε‐transition carbides under the coupling effect of strain energy and thermal energy and their impact on the residual stress and mechanical properties of the material, using wear‐resistant steel NM300TP as the research subject, combining both experimental and first‐principles calculations. The results show that pre‐deformation accelerates local carbon supersaturation and reduces the diffusion barrier for carbon atoms, thus altering the precipitation behavior of carbides during conventional heat treatment and inducing low‐temperature precipitation of ε‐transition carbides. This results in low‐temperature residual stress relaxation in NM300TP and the attainment of excellent mechanical properties. After applying a 10% pre‐deformation, the precipitation temperature of the ε‐transition carbides decreases from 200 to 125 °C. Compared to the conventional tempering process at 200 °C, the sample treated with 10% pre‐deformation combined with low‐temperature tempering at 125 °C exhibits a 10.3% greater reduction in residual stress, alongside a 0.015 improvement in absolute wear resistance and an 11.3 HV 0.5 increase in hardness.