Improved ductility of a transformation-induced-plasticity steel by nanoscale austenite lamellae

TRIP (transformation-induced-plasticity) steel with a chemical composition of 0.19C-0.30Si-1.76Mn-1.52Al (weight percentage, wt%) have been treated by intercritical annealing and austempering process. The microstructures of the obtained samples consist of the ferrite, the bainite and the retained austenite phase. The volume fractions of the bainite and the retained austenite gradually increase with increasing the temperature of the intercritical annealing. Consequently, significantly different mechanical properties have been observed. The sample annealed at 820 °C (for 120 s) and partitioned at 400 °C (for 300 s) has the best combination of ultimate tensile strength (UTS, ∼682 MPa) and elongation to failure (∼70%) with about 26% of bainitic ferrite plates and 17% retained austenite in its microstructure. The retained austenite has a lamella morphology with 100‒300 nm in thickness and 2‒5 µm in length. On the contrary, the sample annealed at the same temperature without the partitioning process yields much lower UTS and elongation to failure.