Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Hot-Rolled Low-Carbon Medium-Manganese TRIP Steels

Transformation Induced Plasicity (TRIP) steels have attracted a growing interest in recent years due to their high strength and ductility combination.An alternative alloy and processing concept has been studied to evaluate the feasibility of producing low-carbon medium-manganese TRIP Steels. Conventional hot-rolling, and batch annealing processes were simulated with three laboratory heats of varying manganese content. The steels were found to be fully hardenable with conventional hot-strip mill processing and subsequent batch annealing simulations produced significant retained austenite levels. The combination of the prior martensitic microstructure in the as-hot-rolled condition, and austenite created during annealing,resulted in remarkable combinations of strength and ductility. Optimum properties were found when samples were annealed at approximately 630 C. While this treatment maded the tensile strength to 800-1020 MPa, the total elongation increased to between 27 percent and 35 percent. UTS*TE products exceeding 30,000 MPa*% were observed, making these materials attractive for high strength, high ductility applications.