High-speed steels, composed of nanostructured martensite and carbides, rank among the highest-strength steels available, making them a fundamental pillar of the metalworking and tooling industries.
However, in most cases, the underlying cause of tool failure is material fatigue that is not reflected in a material's conventional mechanical properties. Yet improving the fatigue behavior of such a high-strength material is a complex undertaking.
That's why Lukas Walch, Thomas Klünsner, Stefan Marsoner, and Gerald Ressel at the Materials Center Leoben, as well as other researchers at the Erich Schmid Institute and voestalpine Böhler Edelstahl GmbH & Co KG, utilized extreme heat treatments bordering on what's possible to vary microstructural features while maintaining the same chemical composition. Then, they fatigued and fractured the so-made specimens to demonstrate that carbide and martensite morphology can be used to enhance the fatigue behavior of tool materials.
For the complete text, see: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2025.114971
