WOOTZ DAMASCUS STEEL BLADES

Wootz Damascus steel blades contain surface patterns produced by bands of cementite particles which are generated in situ as the blades are forged from small ingots. A process for making these blades has recent ly been developed which involves making ingots in a gas-fired furnace followed by forging to blade shapes. This study presents a series of a dditional experiments which provide strong evidence that the mechanism responsible for the formation of the aligned cementite bands is simil ar to the mechanism that produces banded hypoeutectoid steels. That me chanism attributes the selective formation of ferrite bands to microse gregated alloying elements. The results of this study show that the ce mentite bands will form in ultraclean hypereutectoid, steels (P and S levels <0.003wt.%) by the addition of small amounts of the carbide-for ming elements V, Cr, and Ti at a combined level of <0.02wt%. The resul ts present strong evidence that the cementite bands are formed by a se lective coarsening of cementite particles during the thermal cycling o f the forging process. The particle coarsening is induced to occur pre ferentially in the interdendritic regions of the alloys by the very sm all additions of the carbide-forming elements. (C) Elsevier Science In c., 1996