Investigation of the microstructure, mechanical properties and tensile behavior of a low carbon nickel-manganese dual-phase transformationinduced plasticity steel by heavy warm rolling

Abstract

A dual phase (martensite–austenite) low carbon nickel-manganese transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP) steel was fabricated by heavily warm rolling (HWR), and the effect of annealing on the phase fraction, mechanical properties and tensile deformation behavior of the heavily warm rolled (HWRed) steel was investigated. The results showed that the reverse transformation of γ-austenite from α′-martensite occurs and that the γ-austenite volume fraction (VA) decreases from 91% to 55% as the annealing temperature increases from 400 °C to 800 °C, respectively. The HWRed steel annealed at 400 °C exhibits a high strength-high ductility combination with yield strength of 706 MPa, ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 1573 MPa, total elongation (TEL) of 21.6%, and the product of the strength and elongation (PSE: UTS×TEL) is 34 GPa%. These excellent mechanical properties are principally attributed to the formation of a large volume fraction of austenite (γ) by the reverse transformation and subsequent TRIP effect during tensile deformation. It was found that the HWRed and annealed steels exhibit a special tensile behavior with a large yielding strain followed by pronounced strain hardening. The tensile curve can be readily divided into three obviously different stages. The strain-induced martensite (SIM) transformation (γ -α′) occurs in the early yielding deformation stage and in the intermediate rapidly hardening deformation stage, indicating that the TRIP effect dominates the process of these two stages. However, the retained γ-austenite remains very stable, and no TRIP effect is observed in the final hardening deformation stage. The load-unload reload (LUR) test was performed to evaluate the back stress (σb) hardening effect during tensile testing. It is believed that the pronounced strain hardening behavior after yielding is mainly associated with the σb enhancement induced by the strain partitioning between the soft retained γ-austenite and the hard α′-martensite due to the SIM transformation during tensile deformation.