Development of hard bainite

It is demonstrated that in a high-carbon steel where carbide precipitation is suppressed, bainite can be obtained by isothermal transformation at temperatures as low as 200degreesC. The time taken for nucleation at this temperature can be many days, but the transformation results in the growth of extremely thin platelets of bainite, so thin that the hardness of the resulting steel can be greater than 600 HV.