Abstract: The microstructural banding in steels is often found in hot rolling strips, which plays a very important role in mechanical properties. Much work has been done to investigate how the microstructural banding is formed during hot rolling. In the present study, the microstructure of hot rolling strips was examined in term of optical microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Electron probe microanalysis ｗａs also used to decide the distribution of microchemical bands, by this means, the phases in these strips were found to be ferrite and pearlite. The average distance between the carbon lamellas in pearlite is about 0.06-0.1μm. It is also shown that microstructural banding in hot rolled carbon steel ｗａs closely related to the segregation of manganese and silicon into those bands. Based on the transformation kinetic, the simulated results pointｅｄ out that the thermodynamic stability of austenite would increase with the increasing of Mn, which led to a decrease of ferrite growth rate. The effect of Mn on the decomposition of austenite is attributed to segregation of Mn atoms along the ferrite/austenite phase boundary which causes a strong solute drag effect. The addition of Mn to steel decreases the activity of austenite, thereby it is beneficial to the formation of non-equilibrium phase, such as degenerate pearlite. The formation of banded structure on the hot rolled process was discussed.

Key words: pearlite, ferrite, microstructural banding