La relaxation des contraintes résiduelles de trempe au cours du revenu dépend fortement des évolutions des microstructures et du comportement thermomécanique. Ainsi, la prévision de l’évolution des contraintes résiduelles nécessite le couplage entre les calculs des champs de température, des transformations de phases, des contraintes et des déformations au cours du traitement. Dans ce travail, nous avons développé un modèle métallurgique pour décrire les cinétiques de précipitation au cour du revenu : la germination, la croissance et la coalescence (ou dissolution) du carbure epsilon et de la cémentite. Ce modèle permet de calculer les évolutions de la composition chimique de la matrice, du type, des distributions de taille des précipités lors du revenu de la martensite d’aciers faiblement alliés. Dans une deuxième étape, nous avons développé un modèle thermomécanique permettant de prédire l’évolution de la contrainte d’écoulement de la martensite revenue, basé sur les évolutions des paramètres microstructuraux obtenus par le modèle métallurgique. Le modèle thermomécanique prend en compte les différents mécanismes de durcissement (durcissement par solution solide, durcissement par les précipités et durcissement par dislocations), et l’effet de la température de déformation. Une validation expérimentale de ces modèles a été menée dans le cas de l’acier 80MnCr5 en s’appuyant sur des résultas obtenus par microscopie électronique à transmission et dilatométrie thermomécanique. Les modèles métallurgique et thermomécanique ont finalement été introduits dans le logiciel de calcul par éléments finis ZeBuLoN pour simuler l’évolution des contraintes internes lors de la trempe et du revenu. Une première analyse de la relaxation des contraintes au cours du revenu a été effectuée. / The relaxation of the residual stress during the tempering process is strongly related to the evolutions of the microstructure and thermomechanical properties. Thus, the simulation of the evolution of residual stresses requests the coupling of the temperature field, the phase transformations and the stress and strain evolutions all along the process. In this work, firstly, a metallurgical model has been developed to describe the tempering kinetics: nucleation, growth (or dissolution) and coarsening of the epsilon carbide and the cementite. This model allows to predict the evolutions of the matrix composition, the type, size and distribution of the precipitates during the tempering of martensite for low and middle alloyed steels. Secondly, based on the microstructure parameters calculated by the metallurgical model, a thermomechanical model has been also developed to predict the evolution of the flow stress of tempered martensite. The thermomechanical model not only takes into account the different hardening mechanisms (solution hardening, precipitate hardening and the dislocation hardening), but also the effect of deformation temperature. An experimental validation of the two models has been performed for a 80MnCr5 steel using the results obtained by electron transmission microscopy and thermomechanical dilatometry. Finally, the metallurgical model and the thermomechanical model have been implemented into the finite element calculation software ZeBuLoN to simulate the evolution of internal stress during the quenching and tempering process. A first analysis of the stress relaxation during tempering has been performed.

The processes leading to the retention of small quantities of austenite following the bainite and martensite phase transformations have been examined, together with the influence of retained austenite on the properties of low alloy steels. It was found that the upper and lower bainite transformations are separate reactions, although both involve a displacive transformation mode, Growth seems to occur by the repeated nucleation of martensitic sub-units, and this leads to an apparently slow growth rate, The partitioning of carbon from bainitic ferrite into residual austenite was thermodynamically proven to occur subsequent to transformation, and was shown to be directly responsible for the 'incomplete reaction phenomenon'. The nature of sympathetic nucleation and of the limited size of bainitic sub-units was rationalised in terms of the relatively low driving force available for bainite transformations. It was shown that the retention, stability and morphology of austenite could be directly derived from the basic transformation mechanism. Under certain circumstances, the bainitic retained austenite conferred exceptional strength/toughness properties to silicon steels; these were· shown to be superior to the properties associated with tempered martensite microstructures, Using thermodynamics, a model was established which could predict the toughness behaviour of silicon steel bainites simply from a knowledge of the composition. The tempered martensite embrittlement phenomenon was not found to be directly linked to the decomposition of retained austenite films, but to the coarsening of inter- or intra-lath carbides. In dislocated martensites, it was found that the distribution and quantity of retained austenite could be rationalised in terms of the degree of accommodation between adjacent martensite variants. The incipient twins generally observed in lath martensites were shown to be accommodation defects such that the extent of twinning was the greatest when adjacent martensite units had twin-related lattices. The thermodynamics of dislocated martensites have been briefly examined, The inhomogeneous deformation behaviour of dual-phase steels has been analysed in terms of available models.