Influences of Austenization Temperature and Annealing Time on Duplex Ultrafine Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Medium Mn Steel

A duplex ultrafine microstructure in a medium manganese steel (0.2C-5 Mn) was produced by austenite reverted transformation annealing (ART-annealing). The microstructural evolution during annealing was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Based on the microstructure examination, it was found that some M3C type carbides appeared in the martensitic matrix at the beginning of the ART-annealing. But with further increasing annealing time, these carbides would be dissolved and finally disappeared. Meanwhile, the austenite lath was developed in the ART-annealing process and the volume fraction of austenite increased with the increase of the annealing time, which resulted in a duplex microstructure consisting of ultrafine-grained ferrite and large fraction of reverted austenite after long time annealing. The mechanical property examinations by uniaxial tensile tests showed that ART-annealing (6 h, 650 °C) resulted in a superhigh product of strength to elongation up to 42 GPa • %.