Study on microstructure and properties of bimodal structured ultrafine-grained ferrite steel

Abstract

The objective of the study research was to obtain bimodal structured ultrafine-grained ferrite steel with outstanding mechanical properties and excellent corrosion resistance. The bimodal microstructure was fabricated by the cold rolling and annealing process of a dual-phase steel. The influences of the annealing process on microstructure evolution and the mechanical properties of the cold-rolled dual-phase steel were investigated. The effect of bimodal microstructure on corrosion resistance was also studied. The results showed that the bimodal characteristic of ferrite steel was most apparent in cold-rolled samples annealed at 650°C for 40 min. More importantly, due to the coordinated action of fine-grained strengthening, back-stress strengthening, and precipitation strengthening, the yield strength (517 MPa) of the bimodal microstructure improved significantly, while the total elongation remained at a high level of 26%. The results of corrosion experiments showed that the corrosion resistance of bimodal ferrite steel was better than that of dual-phase steel with the same composition. This was mainly because the Volta potential difference of bimodal ferrite steel was smaller than that of dual-phase steel, which was conducive to forming a protective rust layer.