The austenite formation under isochronal conditions in Nb micro-alloyed low carbon steel was studied using the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami-Kolmogorov (JMAK) model, for different heating rates and by means of dilatometric curves. The functional relationship between the apparent activation energy and heating rate was used in addition to this model. It was shown that this functional relationship is logarithmic and that the apparent activation energy decreases from 152.5 to 118.1 kJ/mol when the heating rate increases from 0.1 to 16 K/s, with the n exponent of the JMAK equation equal to 1.0.
Phase transformations; modeling; kinetics; low carbon steel
