2024 Faculty Courses School of Materials and Chemical Technology Undergraduate major in Materials Science and Engineering
Ferrous Materials I - Fundamentals of Iron and Steels
- Academic unit or major
- Undergraduate major in Materials Science and Engineering
- Instructor(s)
- Satoru Kobayashi / Nobuo Nakada / Yoshihiro Terada
- Class Format
- Lecture (Face-to-face)
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - 3-4 Tue / 3-4 Fri
- Class
- -
- Course Code
- MAT.M305
- Number of credits
- 200
- Course offered
- 2024
- Offered quarter
- 1Q
- Syllabus updated
- Mar 14, 2025
- Language
- Japanese
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
Why the steels are widely used in our society? How important the steels are to achieve a safe, reliable and sustainable society? How much the steels are produced? How the steels are produced? The key points to answer these questions are within the steels. This course, “Ferrous Materials I”, gives you the basics and principles of the physical metallurgy of iron and steels. The course, “Ferrous Materials II”, which is linked to this course, provides you opportunities to understand how the steels are produced based on the principles. Students will learn unique characteristics of iron and steels to produce a variety of properties that you want to give through studies on the basis of metallurgy such as phase diagram and phase transformation.
Course description and aims
Students will be able to:
1) Understand iron-carbon equilibrium phase diagrams, phase transformations in plain carbon steels and normalized microstructures formed through the phase transformations.
2) Understand the effects of alloying elements on the equilibrium phase diagrams, the phase transformations and microstructure evolutions in steels.
3) Understand the excellent heat treatability of steels to control microstructures, the microstructures being the decisive factor for the mechanical properties of steels, and these points making it possible to use the steels in a variety of applications.
Keywords
Phase diagram, phase transformation, crystal structure, normalized microstructure, time-temperature-transformation diagram, continuous-cooling-transformation diagram, martensitic transformation, bainitic transformation, the tempering of martensite, The effect of alloying elements
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
Students are recommended to study the part of each lecture in advance.
Questionnaires will be given in each lecture to assist your understanding.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Iron is a gift from God. How fantastic Iron is！！ | Understand what iron is about and how attractive/important for civilization |
| Class 2 | Mystery of pure iron | Learn the crystal structures, the unique phase transformations and the phase diagram of iron |
| Class 3 | In-depth understangings of Fe-C binary phase diagram | Learn the fundamentals of steels (Fe-C alloys) through Fe-C phase phase diagrams. If you mis this lecture, you cannot keep up with the following lectures. Understand the iron-cementite and iron-graphite equilibrium diagrams. |
| Class 4 | The standard microstructures and their formation processes of the steels | Understand the typical microstructures and their formation processes of steels based on the binary phase diagram |
| Class 5 | Review and exercise, and general discussion/level check | Understand the time-temperature-transformation (TTT) diagrams and how to construct it. |
| Class 6 | Time-temperature-transformation (TTT) diagram | Understand the continuous-cooling-transformation (CCT) diagrams and how to construct it. |
| Class 7 | Midterm exam | Check the level of understanding up to now, and discusison |
| Class 8 | What is Martensite? - the features and structure - | Learn what the features and structure of martensite are about |
| Class 9 | What is Martensite? - the phase transformation and crystallography - | Learn what the martensitic phase transformation is through crystallography |
| Class 10 | Tempered Martensite and microstructures | Learn the microstructure evolution of tempered martensite during heat treatments |
| Class 11 | Phase diagrams of alloyed steels | Understand the effect of alloying elements on phase diagram in steels. particularly paying attention to the phase stability between bcc Fe and fcc Fe. |
| Class 12 | The tempering of martensite and the formation of carbides in alloy steels | Understand how the alloying elements affect the γ to α phase transformation and the mechanism, in comparison with those in the binary Fe-C system. |
| Class 13 | Microstructure evolution of tempered martensite of alloyed steels during heat treatment | Learn the methods to control microstructure by tempering the alloyed steels. |
| Class 14 | Final exam | Check the level of understanding the second hald of the contents. |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to prepare and review class contents for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
講座・現代の金属学 材料編４ 『鉄鋼材料』 日本金属学会
Reference books, course materials, etc.
谷野満，鈴木茂著 『鉄鋼材料の科学』 内田老鶴圃
Evaluation methods and criteria
Questionnaires and midterm excersize: 50%
Final examination: 50%
Related courses
- MAT.M306 ： Ferrous Materials II - Principles for Applications
- MAT.M201 ： Fundamentals of Crystallography
Prerequisites
None required.