Effect of intercritical annealing on retained austenite characterization in textured TRIP-assisted steel sheet

Optimization of high strength and high formability of multiphase cold rolled sheet TRIP-aided steels is based on the composition and the austempering conditions. The effect of intercritical annealing temperature on the volume fraction and carbon concentration of the retained austenite was investigated in two different TRIP-aided steels. Experimental results show that the optimum annealing temperatures are 860 °C for Al-containing and 810 °C for Si-containing TRIP steels. It was demonstrated that the measurement of retained austenite can be successfully performed for textured TRIP steels by XRD.