Annealing Response of Cold-Rolled Vanadium Microalloyed Sheet Steels

Vanadium microalloying is widely employed in hot-rolled HSLA products; because of its relatively high solubility in austenite, vanadium plays a special role in thin-slab cast hot-rolled products where reheating is limited prior to direct-rolling. In cold-rolled and annealed sheet steels, vanadium technology has been employed in bake-hardenable drawing-quality steels, and in HSLA products. Recent studies have investigated the continuous and batch annealing response of vanadium-containing cold-rolled HSLA steels, with an emphasis on aluminum and nitrogen variations (because of the special importance of nitrogen in vanadium microallyed steels, and interesting interactions between vanadium, aluminum and nitrogen). The present contribution reviews some key aspects of vanadium-microalloyed cold-rolled sheet steels, and highlights the results of selected studies showing the influence of steel composition and processing.