Effect of controlled rolling on the martensitic hardenability of dual phase steel

The C-Mn and C-Mn-Nb steels were thermo-mechanically processed to develop dual phase steel and to study the effect of controlled rolling on the martensitic hardenability of austenite. The steel specimens were intercritically annealed at 790°C, rolled at that temperature to the reductions of 10%, 23%, and 47% and immediately cooled at different rates. Quantitative metallography was used to construct the microstructure map, which illustrated that increasing deformation progressively reduced the proportion of new ferrite formed at all cooling rates and increased the amount of martensite at fast and intermediate rates. The martensitic hardenability of austenite remaining after all the rolling reductions was plotted as a function of cooling rates. It was observed that for the austenite-martensite conversion efficiencies greater than about 25%, controlled rolling increased the martensitic hardenability of austenite.