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Effect of Intercritical Annealing on Microstructural Evolution and Properties of Quenched & Partitioned (Q&P) Steels

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Abstract

Transformation of metastable austenite into martensite in novel quenched & partitioned (Q&P) steels improves sheet formability, allowing this class of high-strength steels to be used for automotive structural components. The current work studies the microstructural evolution by varying intercritical annealing time (t a), as well as its influence on the martensite-austenite constituent and mechanical properties of Q&P steels. As the t a was prolonged, the morphology of retained austenite progressively transformed from block to a mixture of block and film, and finally changed to totally film. Based on electron back-scatter diffraction (EBSD) measurements and uniaxial tensile response, the holding time of 600 s at 760 °C was determined to produce the best results in terms of highest volume fraction of retained austenite (f γ = 15.8%) and largest strain (26.8%) at the ultimate tensile strength (892 MPa). This difference in work-hardening behavior corresponds directly to the transformation rate of retained austenite with different morphology. The slower rate of transformation of filmy austenite allowed for work hardening to persist at high strains where the transformation effect had already been exhausted in the blocky one. There is great potential for properties improvement through adjustment of metastability of retained austenite.

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Acknowledgments

This study is funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51571141).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Special Steel, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Advanced Ferrometallurgy, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

    Riming Wu

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Rd, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Xuejun Jin & Chenglin Wang

  3. State Key Lab of Development and Application Technology of Automotive Steels, Baosteel Research Institute, Shanghai, 201900, China

    Li Wang

Authors
  1. Riming Wu
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  2. Xuejun Jin
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  3. Chenglin Wang
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  4. Li Wang
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Correspondence to Riming Wu.

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Wu, R., Jin, X., Wang, C. et al. Effect of Intercritical Annealing on Microstructural Evolution and Properties of Quenched & Partitioned (Q&P) Steels. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 25, 1603–1610 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-016-1985-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-016-1985-8

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