Superior mechanical properties and work-hardening ability of ultrafine-grained quenched and partitioned steels processed by a novel approach involving asymmetric hot rolling

Abstract

An approach is proposed to enhance the mechanical properties and work-hardening (WH) ability of low-alloy steels. Using asymmetric hot rolling (AHR) and subsequent direct quenching (DQ) prior to the quenching and partitioning (Q&P) process, an ultrafine-grained Q&P steel with excellent combination of tensile strength of ~1000 MPa and total elongation of ~35% was obtained, which exhibited high WH exponent at higher strain induced by the higher volume fraction and higher stability of film-like retained austenite located between the martensite laths.