Martensitic steels have become very important engineering materials in modern society. Crucial parts of everyday products are made of martensitic steels, from surgical needles and razor blades to car components and large-scale excavators. Martensite, which results from a rapid diffusionless phase transformation, has a complex nature that is challenging to characterize and to classify. Moreover the possibilities for modeling of this phase transformation have been limited, since its thermodynamics and kinetics are only reasonably well understood. However, the recent development of characterization capabilities and computational techniques, such as CALPHAD, and its applicability to ferrous martensite has not been fully explored yet.

In the present work, a thermodynamic method for predicting the martensite start temperature (M_s) of commercial steels is developed. It is based mainly on information on M_s from binary Fe-X systems obtained from experiments using very rapid cooling, and M_s values for lath and plate martensite are treated separately. Comparison with the experimental M_s of several sets of commercial steels indicates that the predictive ability is comparable to models based on experimental information of M_s from commercial steels.

A major part of the present work is dedicated to the effect of carbon content on the morphological transition from lath- to plate martensite in steels. A range of metallographic techniques were employed: (1) Optical microscopy to study the apparent morphology; (2) Transmission electron microscopy to study high-carbon plate martensite; (3) Electron backscattered diffraction to study the variant pairing tendency of martensite. The results indicate that a good understanding of the martensitic microstructure can be achieved by combining qualitative metallography with quantitative analysis, such as variant pairing analysis. This type of characterization methodology could easily be extended to any alloying system and may thus facilitate martensite characterization in general.

Finally, a minor part addresses inverse bainite, which may form in high-carbon alloys. Its coupling to regular bainite is discussed on the basis of symmetry in the Fe-C phase diagram.  

With the increased interest in bainitic steels, fundamental understanding of the bainite transformationis of major importance. Unfortunately, the research on bainite has been hampered by an oldcontroversy on its formation mechanism. Over the years two quite different theories have developedclaiming to describe the bainite transformation i.e. the diffusionless and the diffusion controlledtheory. In this thesis, attention is directed towards fundamental understanding of the bainitetransformation and both experimental and theoretical approaches are used in order to reveal its truenatureIn the first part of this thesis the symmetry in the Fe-C phase diagram is studied. It is based on ametallographic mapping of microstructures using light optical microscopy and scanning electronmicroscopy in a high carbon steel. The mapping revealed symmetries both with respect to temperatureand carbon content and an acicular eutectoid with cementite as the leading phase was found andidentified as inverse bainite. By accepting that all the eutectoid microstructures forms by diffusion ofcarbon, one may explain the existence of symmetries in the Fe-C phase diagram. Additional supportof its existence is obtained from an observation of symmetries in an alloyed steel. From the performedwork it was concluded that the existence of symmetries among the eutectoid microstructures fromaustenite supports the idea that bainite forms by a diffusion controlled transformation.In the second part the growth of bainite is considered. An experimental study using laser scanningconfocal microscopy was performed and growth rates of the transformation products from austenite ina high carbon, high chromium steel was analysed. The growth rate measurements reveals the kineticrelation between Widmanstätten cementite and the acicular eutectoid previously identified as inversebainite which confirms its existence and the conclusions drawn in the first part. In addition, in-situobservations of bainite formation below Ms provide additional support for the diffusion controlledtheory for bainite formation.The final part of the work is a study of the critical conditions for the formation of acicular ferrite.Based on experimental information found in the literature a thermodynamic analysis is performed inview of the two theories. The results demonstrate that the governing process for Fe-C alloys cannot bediffusionless but both kinds of processes can formally be used for predicting Bs temperatures for Fe-Calloys.