Journal of Material Sciences & Engineering

Heat Treatment Simulation of the Formation of Idiomorphic Iron Carbides with Widmanstätten Structure Observed in Archaeological Steel Pieces more than 2000 Years Old Subjected to Incineration Processes

Abstract

Laura García, Javier Criado A, Fernando Penco, Growene W Queirós, José M Gómez de Salazar and Antonio J Criado

Archaeometallurgy has shown that the passage of long periods of time - centuries and millennia - produces very characteristic structures and morphologies in hypo-eutectoid steels. It is the evolution of contemporary steel structures that over time evolve into thermodynamic equilibrium at room temperature. These morphologies have been studied by us over a long period of time. In this research we present a thermal treatment of simulation of the structures related to the incineration of pre-Roman archaeological pieces from the 3rd to the 1st century BC. With this longlasting thermal treatment of up to 10,000 hours of heating to 300°C, prior heating to 950°C and abrupt cooling, we intend to obtain iron carbide structures of similar morphology to those observed in pre-Roman archaeological pieces.