Effect of continuous annealing process on various structure parameters of martensite of dual-phase steels

Abstract

Industrial continuous annealing process routes for dual-phase steels are mostly found to be non-isothermal in nature. The present study is an effort to understand the importance of non-isothermal annealing process parameters and their impact on the various metallurgical phenomena; such as recrystallisation and phase transformation behaviours of duel-phase steel. These, in turn, are expected to influence various structure parameters of martensite phase which are critical in determining the strength of duel-phase steel. A dual-phase steel sheet in 67% cold rolled full hard condition was subjected to non-isothermal annealing treatment with varying heating rate and inter-critical annealing temperatures. After processing the samples were investigated for structural parameters of martensite phase using a scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffraction, and nano-indentation technique. It was observed that due to non-isothermal nature of continuous annealing process, the hardness of the martensite phase did not follow the hardness trends as determined from conventional carbon concentration. Further, lattice tetragonality of martensite was also affected by increasing its volume fractions. The annealing process apparently influenced the evolution of texture because of the increasing fraction of martensite in dual-phase steel.