Synergic Evolution of Microstructure-Texture-Stored Energy in Rare-Earth-Added Interstitial-Free Steels Undergoing Static Recrystallization

doi:10.1007/s40195-022-01492-6

Abstract

Abstract:

Synergic evolution of microstructure-texture-stored energy in interstitial-free (IF) steels has been investigated to elaborate the effect of dissolved rare-earth (RE) elements on static recrystallization. Grain size, texture fraction and geometrically necessary dislocation distribution of IF steel samples annealed for different times were compared, suggesting that RE elements could postpone recrystallization nucleation but accelerate grain coarsening. The visco-plastic self-consistent model was primarily adopted and verified, then used to calculate the relative activities of different slip systems. It was proved that the compatible deformation of IF steels was very sensitive to dissolved RE elements, in particular the {110}₆<111>₂ slip systems became extremely inactive, leading to an α-fibre textures rich configuration of RE-IF steels. Although both IF steels have the same stored energy sequence of which γ-fibre takes precedence in nucleation followed by α-fibre, the nucleation rates of α/γ-fibres driven by the reduced stored energy slowed down in RE-IF steels. Further nucleation-path analyses revealed that shear bands within γ-fibre mainly sacrificed for grain nucleation of {111}<110> orientation, while α-fibre especially prior grain boundaries therein preferred supplying nucleation sites for {554}<225> grains, which accounting for the competitive growth of γ-fibre textures in RE-IF steels rather than being dominated by a single orientation. After grain growth, the major texture of Normal-IF steels had been transferred to {554}<225> from {111}<110>, while {554}<225> in RE-IF steels still inherited the orientation advantage and grew up rapidly, thus inducing the grain coarsening. As this work offers a significant understanding of RE microalloying effect on static recrystallization, it will provide references for alloy design and industrial application of IF steels.

Key words: Static recrystallization, IF steels, RE elements, Texture, Grain coarsening, Slip systems

Peng Liu, Xiaodong Hou, Chaoyun Yang, Yikun Luan, Chengwu Zheng, Dianzhong Li. Synergic Evolution of Microstructure-Texture-Stored Energy in Rare-Earth-Added Interstitial-Free Steels Undergoing Static Recrystallization[J]. Acta Metallurgica Sinica (English Letters), 2023, 36(4): 661-680.

Figures/Tables 16

Table 1 Chemical composition of the investigated IF steels (in wt%)

Steel grades	C	Si	Mn	S	Ti	Nb	RE	Fe
Normal-IF steel	0.0028	0.02	0.10	0.0021	0.062	0.046	-	Bal.
RE-IF steel	0.0025	0.02	0.09	0.0009	0.063	0.046	0.0025	Bal.

Fig. 1 a Complete production process for IF steels in two distinct routes, b heat treatment schedule for simulated annealing in dilatometer

Table 2 Statistics of $\overline{r}$ values, texture ratio and grain sizes of IF steels subjected to Route 1

Aspects	Normal-IF steels	RE-IF steels
Weighted average,$\overline{r}$	1.93	2.23
Texture ratio	27	41
Annealed grain sizes	13.65 μm	16.50 μm
Hot-rolled grain sizes	7.43 μm	10.36 μm

Fig. 2 Pre-annealed microstructures of a the Normal-IF and b the RE-IF steel, c, d correspond to pole figures of these two microstructures, respectively

Fig. 3 Microstructures of a the Normal-IF steel and b the RE-IF steel samples from a1, b1 cold-rolled states to various interrupted annealed states of different holding times: a2, b2 0 s; a3, b3 3 s; a4, b4 10 s; a5, b5 50 s; a6, b6 80 s; a7, b7 90 s; a8, b8 210 s and a9, b9 690 s, wherein the microstructure evolution is divided into two major stages separated by the critical holding time of around 20 s encountering the recrystallization fraction of more than 96%

Fig. 4 Statistics of microstructural fraction and grain size of the investigated steels during static recrystallization: a area percentage of microstructure groups at the nucleation stage, b average grain size of top five largest grains at the nucleation stage, c average grain size of fully recrystallized IF steel samples during grain growth and coarsening stage

Fig. 5 φ2 = 45° ODF sections of a the cold-rolled Normal-IF steel, b the cold-rolled RE-IF steel, c the fully recrystallized Normal-IF steel, d the fully recrystallized RE-IF steel and their corresponding standard φ2 = 45° section with typical orientation fibres and textures of cubic system

Fig. 6 a Volume fraction Δg, b orientation distribution density f(g) of typical textures in the Normal-IF steel and the RE-IF steel, in which the volume fraction is calculated with the tolerance of 15°

Fig. 7 GNDs density of experimental steels at a cold-rolled state and annealed states with different holding times: b 0 s, c 3 s, d 7 s and e 10 s, wherein the local enlarged drawings a1, b1 and e1 correspond to selected areas in a, b and e, respectively

Fig. 8 a, b Simulated ODFs calculated by the VPSC model, c, d experimental ODFs restructured from the EBSD maps of a, c Normal-IF steel and b, d RE-IF steel

Fig. 9 Calculated a relative activities of {110}6<111>2, {112}12<111>1 and {123}24<111>1 slip systems in IF steels undergoing rolling deformation, and the b schematic diagram of orientation relationships among {112}, {110} and {111} slip planes, as well as c thermodynamic calculation of interaction behaviour among steelmaking elements for IF steels before and after RE addition

Fig. 10 GNDs statistics within typical textures of investigated IF steels from a cold-rolled states to annealed states with holding times of b 0 s and c 3 s, respectively, in which the selected area marked with dashed rectangle is locally enlarged in picture d

Fig. 11 Local enlargements of selected areas A-B from Fig. 3a2, b2 and oriented nucleation behaviours of a the Normal-IF steel and b the RE-IF steel, c simultaneous nucleation morphology of the Normal-IF steel but in RD-TD plane. These special regions marked as Ai=1,2,3,4, Bi=1,2,3, and Ci=1,2,3 were traced to typical crystallographic orientations of {111}<uvw>/{554}<225>, {001}<110> and {112}<110> respectively, in which the rod-like subgrains in Ai=4 originated from shear bands composed of several microbands illustrated in d

Fig. 12 Misorientation variation of the shear bands within γ-fibre textures: (L1) shear bands in RD-TD plane of the Normal-IF steel; (L2) shear bands in RD-TD plane of the RE-IF steel, where the selected shear bands were marked by yellow arrows in Fig. 11a, b

Fig. 13 Different nucleation paths of γ-fibre orientation grains from deformed Fe-matrix: a RD-TD midplane, b RD-ND plane of the Normal-IF steel with 7 s holding time

Fig. 14 a, b Volume fraction of γ-fibre orientations within coarse grains, c, d number fraction of grain boundaries within γ-fibre grains, e, f morphology of orientation clusters in a, c, e the Normal-IF steel and b, d, f the RE-IF steel

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