A Study on Microstructure, Texture and Precipitation Evolution at Different Stages of Steel Processing in Interstitial Free High Strength Steels

Abstract

The formability characteristics of interstitial free high strength (IFHS) steels are significantly governed by processing parameters of steel at consecutive processing stages, chiefly hot rolling of slabs followed by cold reduction of hot rolled coils and finally annealing treatment of cold reduced coils. The present work focuses on investigating the steel processing parameters for a chosen set of processing parameters which in turn influence the final formability of the steel. The underlying objective is to study the effect of steel processing parameters, which in turn favorably control texture, microstructure, precipitate morphology and its distribution at each step to impart desired properties in the steel sheet in the end. In the current work, an IFHS steel chemistry is chosen with an objective to evaluate the contribution of texture, microstructure and precipitates generated at each processing step to the formability in relation with the chosen processing parameters.