Hot rolling texture development in CMnCrSi dual-phase steels

Abstract

The amount of strain below the temperature of nonrecrystallization, T _nr , has an important influence on the phase fractions and the final crystallographic texture of a hot-rolled dual-phase ferrite+martensite CMnCrSi steel. The final texture is influenced by three main microstructural processes: the recrystallization of the austenite, the austenite deformation, and the austenite-to-ferrite transformation. The amount of strain below T _nr plays a major role in the relative amounts of deformed and recrystallized austenite after rolling. Recrystallized and deformed austenite have clearly different texture components and, due to the specific lattice correspondence relations between the parent austenite phase and its transformation products, the resulting ferrite textures are different as well. In addition, austenite deformation textures result from either dislocation glide or the combination of dislocation glide and mechanical twinning, depending on the stacking fault energy (SFE). The texture components in hot-rolled dual-phase steels were studied by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements and orientation imaging microscopy (OIM). A clear crystallographic orientation difference was observed between the ferrite phase, transformed at temperatures near A _r3 , and the ferritic bainite and martensite phases, formed at lower temperatures. The results suggest that the primary ferrite, nucleated at temperatures close to A _r3 , transformed from the deformed austenite. The low-temperature constituents, bainite and martensite, form in the recrystallized austenite.