Thermal stability of retained austenite and mechanical properties of medium-Mn steel during tempering treatment

The thermal stability of retained austenite（RA）and the mechanical properties of the quenched and intercritical annealed 0.1C-5Mn steel with the starting ultrafine lamellar duplex structure of ferrite and retained austenite during tempering within the range from 200 to 500°C were studied by X-ray diffraction（XRD）,transmission electron microscopy（TEM）and tensile testing.The results showed that there was a slight decrease in the RA volume fraction with increasing tempering temperature up to 400°C.This caused a slight increase in the ultimate tensile strength（UTS）and a slight decrease in the total elongation（TE）;thus,the product of UTS to TE（UTS×TE）as high as 31GPa·% was obtained and remained nearly unchanged.However,aportion of the RA began to decompose when tempered at 500°C and thus caused a;5% decrease of the RA fraction and a;6%decrease of the value of UTS×TE.It is concluded that the ultrafine lamellar duplex structure is rather stable and the excellent combination of strength and ductility could be retained with tempering temperature up to 400°C.Thus,thermal processes such as galvanization are feasible for the tested steel provided that their temperatures are not higher than 400°C.