Effect of rolling reduction on microstructure and property of ultrafine grained low-carbon steel processed by cryorolling martensite

Abstract

A novel method of cryorolling martensite for fabricating ultrafine grained low-carbon steel with attractive strength was proposed. The results indicate that ultrafine-grain structured steel could be manufactured by cryorolling and the subsequent annealing of martensite. The mean ferrite size of 132.0 nm and the tensile strength of 978.1 MPa were obtained in a specimen with a reduction of 70% in thickness. There were peak value and valley value in the strength and grain size of ferrite with the increase of reduction from 50% to 80%, respectively. The further growth of ferrite grain at 80% reduction is attributed to the heavier distortion energy at large reduction, which activates the secondary recrystallization of ferrite. Furthermore, the distribution of ferrite grains became more uniform with increasing of reduction from 50% to 70%. Additionally, the amount of lamellar dislocation cell substructure increased with the reduction at liquid nitrogen temperature.