Thermodynamics of carbon solubility in ferrite and vacancy formation in cementite in strained pearlite Original Research Article

In order to investigate the thermodynamic driving force for the experimentally observed accumulation of C in ferritic layers of severely plastically deformed pearlitic wires, the stabilities of C interstitials in ferrite and of C vacancies in cementite are investigated as a function of uniaxial stain, using density-functional theory. In the presence of an applied strain along [1 1 0] or [1 1 1], the C interstitial in ferrite is significantly stabilized, while the C vacancy in cementite is moderately destabilized by the corresponding strain states in cementite [1 0 0] and ([0 1 0]). The enhanced stabilization of the C interstitial gives rise to an increase in the C concentration within the ferritic layers by up to two orders of magnitude. Our results thus suggest that in addition to the generally assumed non-equilibrium, dislocation-based mechanism, there is also a strain-induced thermodynamic driving force for the experimentally observed accumulation of C in ferrite.