Herein, the thermodynamic and kinetic limitations of carbide dissolution behavior during the traditional heat treatment process are broken through the external field treatment. The difference in electrical conductivity between the matrix and the carbide affects the electric current distribution, which ultimately results in electric field distortion. The numerical calculation results show that under the coupled field of heat and pulsed electric current, the distribution of the current density around the particles is related to the size of the particles. The selective distribution of current caused the energy difference to eventually promote the preferential dissolution of coarse network carbides at grain boundaries. The redistribution of carbon atoms between the grain boundaries and the grain interior provides a good initial structure for the subsequent precipitation process, and finally, uniform precipitation of cementite is achieved in the matrix. Meanwhile, the electromigration of carbon atoms under pulsed electric current increases the diffusion rate of carbon atom and shortens the processing time (traditional heat treatment is about 20 h, and the electropulse‐based method in this study is about 4 h).

中文翻译：

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使用电脉冲加速轴承钢中碳原子的扩散，以减少球化过程的时间并改善微观结构的均匀性

在此，通过外部场处理打破了传统热处理过程中碳化物溶解行为的热力学和动力学限制。基体和碳化物之间的电导率差异会影响电流分布，最终导致电场失真。数值计算结果表明，在热与脉冲电流耦合作用下，粒子周围电流密度的分布与粒子的大小有关。电流的选择性分布引起能量差，最终促进晶粒边界处粗大网络碳化物的优先溶解。碳原子在晶界和晶粒内部之间的重新分布为后续的沉淀过程提供了良好的初始结构，最后，基体中渗碳体的均匀沉淀得以实现。同时，在脉冲电流下碳原子的电迁移增加了碳原子的扩散速率并缩短了处理时间（传统热处理约为20 h，而本研究中基于电脉冲的方法约为4 h）。