Boron stablizing M23C6 carbides?

Question

I am not sure if anyone knows the answer to this question but I thought I would ask anyway. In a high alloy low carbon steel, with the presence of tungsten. Without the presence of titanium to scavange the nitrogen, would boron be able to stablize M23C6 formation. Personally, I think that it would form a BN and not do much of anything in aiding the hardenability or retarding the ferrite nucleation. Any advice would be great. I am at a loss for information at this point

Answer 1

Boron has a powerful effect on the transformation kinetics in steels, so there is a large change in hardenability with small additions (even in low carbon steels).  This is mainly concerned with lattice strain and (as you correctly think) retardation of the austenite to ferrite transformation.

A lot of work has been done on boron steels and the use of boron as an alloying element and with complex steels which you have here the boron does react with some of the carbide forming elements to produce intermetallic borides as well as very fine distributed BN - these are very difficult to dissolve during heat treatment and give some very interesting grain size effects!