ORIGINAL ARTICLE

An investigation into the effect of strain ageing

on mechanical properties of low-carbon steels
after warm rolling
Siamak Serajzadeh
Received: 23 July 2007 / Accepted: 9 January 2008 / Published online: 23 February 2008
# Springer-Verlag London Limited 2008
Abstract In this study, the effect of strain ageing on
mechanical properties of warm-rolled steel is investigated.
Warm-rolling experiments together with mechanical testing
are employed to investigate the effect of processing
parameters on the ageing kinetics during and after warm
rolling of a low-carbon steel. To do so, the occurrence of
dynamic strain ageing is first determined by means of a
two-dimensional thermo-mechanical model and then the
effect of this phenomenon on the subsequent static strain
ageing after warm rolling is studied employing mechanical
testing. The results show that the occurrence of dynamic
strain ageing during warm rolling may effectively alter the
progress of the subsequent static strain ageing as well as the
final mechanical properties of the warm-rolled steel.
Keywords Warmrolling
.
Finite element analysis
.
Mechanical properties
.
Strain ageing
1 Introduction
The desired mechanical properties after warm-rolling
operations are of importance to mill designers and
engineers. In this regard, adjusting process parameters such
as rolling speed, initial temperature, and amount of
deformation per pass are common routes in controlling the
velocity and temperature fields and therefore, in achieving
the proper microstructures and mechanical properties
desired. However, it has been established that one of the
main phenomenon that may alter the mechanical properties
of the warm-rolled steel is strain ageing of the steel [1]. The
ageing process may occur dynamically during deformation
or statically after rolling and in particular cases, both types
of ageing may occur within the steel. There are several
studies that have been made concentrating on the warm
rolling of steels while different aspects of ageing process
and the effects of rolling parameters have been noted in
these works. For instance, hot rolling of steels in the ferrite
region has been investigated in a research work where the
mechanisms of work hardening and work softening during
hot rolling have been studied by means of physical
simulation of the process [2]. Suitable processing schedules
for warm rolling of interstitial-free (IF) steels have been
identified in [3]. In this work, warm-rolling experiments
under different conditions were performed to achieve the
microstructure and mechanical properties. Then, based on
the experimental results, suitable deformation conditions
were derived. A flow stress model under warm-rolling
conditions has been proposed by Huang et al. [4]. In this
research, two grades of commercial Ti-Nb stabilized
interstitial-free steels were investigated, and a flow stress
model with regard to dynamic recovery and recrystallization
was developed to predict the flow behavior of steels during
warm rolling. The microstructures and recrystallization
kinetics after warm rolling have also been studied. The
results show that dynamic strain aging could be responsible
for the formation of moderate and intense shear bands in IF
and low-carbon steels, respectively [5]. In another work, the
mechanical properties and development of microstructure
and texture of a low-carbon steel manufactured by warm-
rolling operations were investigated and in this way
the mechanism of formation of large ferrite grains has
been justified. Several works have also been conducted to
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:721728
DOI 10.1007/s00170-008-1397-5
S. Serajzadeh (*)
Department of Materials Science and Engineering,
Sharif University of Technology,
Azadi Ave., P.O. Box 11365-9466, Tehran, Iran
e-mail: serajzadeh@sharif.edu
predict metal response under warm-rolling conditions [7-9],
for example, rolling process has been mathematically
modeled by a finite element analysis to predict flow
pattern and temperature distribution during warm-rolling
operations [9].
Regarding the published literature, it is found that the
strain ageing phenomenon and its effect on mechanical
properties after warm rolling has not been mentioned in
detail and more work on this issue is required for an
accurate understanding of the interconnection among roll-
ing parameters, ageing kinetics, and ageing time. In this
work, utilizing a two-dimensional thermo-mechanical model,
the flow behavior and temperature variations during warm
rolling are first predicted. For doing so, a combination of finite
element analysis and neural network model is employed. The
flow stress behavior is determined by means of the neural
network model and the temperature and strain rate distribu-
tions are then calculated based on the finite element method.
In the next step, the occurrence of dynamic stain ageing is
predicted by the model results and the experimental data
obtained by the tensile experiments at various temperatures
ranging from 25 to 500C, and strain rates from 10
-4
s
-1
to
0.5 s
-1
. Finally, warm-rolling experiments are conducted
under various deformation conditions and then the mechan-
ical properties of warm-rolled samples are measured after
4 days and 3 months. In this way, the effect of static strain
ageing on mechanical properties can be evaluated.
2 Mathematical model
To assess the effect of rolling parameters on distributions of
temperature and strain rate and therefore to predict the
occurrence of dynamic strain ageing, a thermo-mechanical
model based on the finite element method and the neural
network model is employed. In this work, the warm rolling
of strips is considered and therefore, deformation and the
heat-transfer equations can be assumed to be as two-
dimensional problems. Where the governing equations of
temperature conduction and plastic deformation are de-
scribed as follows:
@
@y
k
@T
@y
_ _

@
@z
k
@T
@z
_ _

q
:
c
@T
@t
1
_
e
:
dV
_
Ke
:
v
e
:
v
dV
_
F
i
u
i
ds 0 2
where , c and k are density, specific heat, and thermal
conductivity of the deforming steel, respectively.
q
:
expresses the volumetric rate of heat of deformation. s is
instantaneous flow stress and e
:
is effective strain rate, and
K is an arbitrary large positive number. The thermal
boundary conditions employed in the model are as follows:
k
@T
@n
h
con
T T
R
q
fric
k
@T
@n
h
sur
T T
1

3
here n denotes the normal direction to the boundary
surface, T
1
is surrounding temperatures and h
con
and h
sur
are the interface heat transfer coefficient and surroundings
heat transfer coefficient, respectively. q
fric
is the distributed
surface flux generated from frictional sliding and is
calculated as shown below:
q
fric
mk
s
v
r
j jA
c
dt 4
where k
s
is the shear yield stress, v
r
the relative velocity
between the metal and the work-rolls. In Eq. (3), T
R
is the
work-roll surface temperature that in this work it has been
assumed to be constant and a mean value of 60C has been
taken for the work-roll surface temperature.
To express the boundary conditions in the analysis of
plastic deformation, the following equation is employed to
describe the frictional stress, t
f
, at the contact area with the
work-rolls [10].
t
f
k
s
m
2
p
tan
1
v
r
a
_ _
_ _
5
where k
s
and v
r
were introduced above while m is the
friction factor, and a is a positive constant of the order of
10
-4
. In addition, the work-rolls are assumed to be rigid
bodies, and so the velocity component along the radial
direction has been set to be zero.
A major point in the modelling of plastic deformation is
the flow stress and its dependence on temperature, strain,
and strain rate. In order to calculate flow stress of
deforming metal at high temperatures, a neural network
model has been constructed and coupled with the plastic
deformation model. A feed-forward network trained with
the back-propagation algorithm has been utilized. A
multiplayer network including an input layer, hidden layers,
and an output layer has been used where the output of one
layer becomes the input to the following layer as shown in
Eq. (6). Figure 1 shows a schematic layout of a network.
h
m1
p f W
m1
s
m
p b
m1
_ _
;
m 0; 1; . . . ; M 1
6
here p represents the iteration number, m and M are the
layer number and total number of layers, respectively. W
m+1
is the weight matrix for the (m+1)
th
layer and b
m+1
is the
weight bias vector for the (m+1)
th
layer.
The back-propagation algorithm is based on an iterative
procedure to minimize the root mean squared error between
the predicted and the desired output data. Strain, strain rate,
722 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:721728
and temperature are chosen to be the input unit levels and
the output unit is the flow stress. Variables are normalized
within the range of 0 to 1 to set all variables in the
same scale. The sigmoidal is then utilized to create the
hidden unit responses as follows:
f
m
i
x
1
1 exp x
7
After each iteration, the output layer is compared with the
experimental result and the root mean squared deviation is
calculated as:
RMSD

p
i
s
pre
s
exp
_ _
2
p

_
8
here
pre
and
exp
are predicted and measured flow stress,
respectively. If the output results do not converge to the
desired data, the weight matrices and bias vectors are
updated using classical on-line backpropagation algorithm
[11] where the updating process is performed by the error
signal for output unit. The error signal vector can be
defined as follows:
e p o p r p 9
here e( p) and o( p) are error signal vector and measured
flow stress vector, respectively. Referring to the magnitude
of error signal, the weight matrix and bias vector are
modified as:
W p 1 W p gD r p e p h p
T
b p 1 b p gD r p e p
10
here D(r( p)) is a diagonal matrix whose p
th
diagonal
member is r
i
( p)(1-r
i
( p)) and is a positive number. The
above learning procedure is repeated until p > p
max
or
RMSD < . It is worth noting that the maximum iteration
number in each training period is selected as 650 and if the
results do not converge during this period, then the training
procedure is repeated with the new initial values.
Equations (1) and (2) together with the flow stress model
should be considered simultaneously to determine the
temperature distribution and the strain rate field within the
deforming body. In order to solve the heat conduction and
the energy equations, finite element analysis utilizing
isoparametric elements [12] have been employed and
Newton-Raphson and direct iteration methods has been
used to solve the nonlinear system of equations. The
employed algorithm is given as a flow chart in Fig. 2.
3 Experimental procedures
A low-carbon steel with the chemical composition given in
Table 1 was studied. Tensile experiments were conducted to
study dynamic strain ageing under different deformation
conditions. These experiments were performed at the
temperatures in the range of room temperature to 500C
and the mean strain rates of 10
-4
to 0.5 (s
-1
). The
experiments were carried out on a computerized Instron
machine. In order to study the effects of rolling parameters
on final microstructure and mechanical properties, warm-
rolling experiments were carried out in a range of 550-750C
and at different rolling speeds and reductions. Dimensions of
the samples used for the warm-rolling tests were 5.760100
(in mm) and the work-roll diameter was 150 mm. All
samples were annealed at 1100C for 1 h and then air-cooled
to room temperature. This treatment was made to reach
similar microstructures for all samples. Then, the samples
were first heat up in a furnace to the deformation temperature
W
11
W
12
W
n3
W
n
W
1
W
2
b
1
i
b
3
Input Layer
Hidden Layers
Output Layer
Temperature
Strain
Strain rate
Flow Stress
b
2
i
Fig. 1 Schematic illustration of
a neural network
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:721728 723
and after 15 min. rolling experiments were performed. The
deformation parameters used in the warm-rolling experi-
ments are listed in Table 2. After warm rolling, a set of
samples were cooled in the air while another set was
quenched in water. Mechanical properties were then
measured by means of tensile testing. The samples were
prepared according to ASTM E8M-98 where constant
crosshead speed of 2 mm/min was employed in the
experiments. In addition, a series of samples were aged
for a period of 3 months and after that, their mechanical
properties were measured.
4 Results and discussion
For estimation of the flow stress of deforming steel, a
neural network model has been constructed that contains a
hidden layer with ten levels and a linear output layer. It
should be noted that two sets of data were employed in the
neural network model, a set was used for training the
network, i.e., sampled data, and the other set was used for
examining the accuracy of the constructed network, i.e.,
non-sampled data. Figure 3 shows the predicted flow
stresses vs. the measured values for the non-sampled data.
The angle of passing line through the data is about 45 that
illustrates the neural networks have been trained properly.
In the next stage, the results of the employed model are
compared with the experimental data to evaluate the
predictions. Table 3 presents the predicted and recorded
roll-forces under different rolling conditions. It is observed
that a reasonable agreement exists between the two sets of
results.
Table 1 Chemical composition of the steel employed in this study
(wt%)
C Mn Si P S Cr N
0.08 0.65 0.05 0.02 0.02 0.05 0.003
Table 2 The deformation conditions used for warm-rolling experiments
Temperature
(C)
Reduction
(%)
Rolling
speed(rpm)
550 12 43
650 18 55
740 22 65
2D FE thermal analysis for determination of
temperature field before deformation
2D FE thermo-mechanical analysis for
predicting velocity field using the neural
network for calculating flow stress
2D FE thermal analysis for prediction of temperature
distribution in the work-piece together with the neural
network to calculate heat of deformation in each element
|| T||/|| T|| < 1E-2
|| v||/|| v|| < 1E-5
yes
No
Updating Thermal
properties and flow
stress based on the
new temperature field
next increment Contact checking yes
No
2D- FE thermal analysis for interstand
section
Fig. 2 The employed algorithm
in thermo-mechanical modeling
of warm rolling
724 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:721728
Utilizing the employed model, it is possible to predict
local temperature, stain, and strain rates at different
regions of the deformation zone. In this way, this makes
it possible to estimate the occurrence of dynamic strain
ageing if the regions of serrated and smooth yielding have
already been recognized. In order to determine the region
of serrated flow the Arrhenius-type equation has been
used as follows:
e
:
Aexp Q=RT 11
here R and A are the gas constant and frequency factor,
respectively, and Q is the apparent activation energy.
Regarding the above equation, and calculating the slope
of a straight line on ln e
:
vs. T
-1
plot, the apparent
activation energies for appearance and terminal of serrated
flow may be calculated. Figure 4 shows the regions of
serrated and smooth yielding according to deformation
conditions, i.e., temperature and strain rate. It is worth
noting that the activation energy for appearance of serrated
yielding was calculated as 81 (kJ/mole) while activation
energy for the terminal of serration was determined as 158
(kJ/mole), which shows that interstitial atoms are respon-
sible for the occurrence of dynamic strain ageing. Figure 5
presents the distribution of temperature and strain rates in
various points of deformation zone under a rolling speed of
43 rpm, reduction of 12%, and initial temperature of 550C.
Note that the flow stress of the steel has been determined by
the neural network model assuming a similar behavior at
strain rates higher than those used in construction of the
neural network. According to the figure, dynamic strain
ageing can occur in a part of deforming metal mainly at the
end of deformation zone and at the inner regions where the
strain rate and the temperature are suitable for happening of
dynamic strain ageing shown as region A in Fig. 4.
However, it is possible to avoid serrated yielding by
selecting a proper rolling layout. For instance, Fig. 6
displays the variations of temperature and strain rate under
50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
P
r
e
d
i
c
t
e
d

S
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
Measured Stress (MPa)
Fig. 3 Comparison between the predicted and measured flow stresses
under different working conditions
1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0
1E-4
1E-3
0.01
0.1
1
10
100
A
B
Smooth Yielding
Smooth Yielding
Serrated Flow
L
n

(
S
t
r
a
i
n
-
R
a
t
e
)
1000/T (K
-1
)
Fig. 4 Regions of serrated and smooth flow according to the applied
temperature and strain rate
Table 3 Comparison between
the predicted and recorded
roll-force under different
rolling conditions
Initial temperature
(C)
Reduction
(%)
Rolling velocity
(m/s)
Recorded
Roll-force (kN)
Predicted
Roll-force (kN)
550 12 0.42 78 72.5
550 22 0.48 96 106
650 12 0.42 59 64.5
650 22 0.48 84 81.1
740 12 0.42 48.5 53.4
740 22 0.51 42 37.8
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:721728 725
a rolling speed of 65 rpm, reduction of 20%, and initial
temperature of 740C. Regarding the predicted temperature
and strain rate distributions, all points of deforming body
are within the smooth yielding region, depicted as region
B in Fig. 4.
As noted before, the warm-rolled steels were permitted
to be aged at room temperature for a period of 3 months.
The tensile testing data show that both water-quenched and
air-cooled steels have been statically aged after a period of
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
250
300
350
400
450
500
550
Depth of 1/2 thickness
Depth of 1/10 thickness
Depth of 1/20 thickness
Sub-Surface
Reduction=12%
Rolling Speed=43 rpm
Initial Temp.=550 C
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

(

C
)
Time (s)

a
b
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
0.01
0.1
1
10
100
Sub-Surface
Depth of 1/20 thickness
Depth of 1/10 thickness
Depth of 1/2 thickness
Reduction=12%
Rolling Speed=43 rpm
Initial Temp.=550 C
S
t
r
a
i
n

r
a
t
e

(
s
-
1
)
Position in Deformation Zone (mm)
Fig. 5 Predicted results under a rolling speed of 43 rpm, reduction of
12%, and initial temperature of 550C. a Predicted temperature
variations. b Predicted strain rate variations
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0.01
0.1
1
10
100
Sub-Surface
Depth of 1/20 thickness
Depth of 1/10 thickness
Depth of 1/2 thickness
Reduction=20%
Rolling Speed=65 rpm
Initial Temp.=740 C
S
t
r
a
i
n

r
a
t
e

(
s
-
1
)
Position in Deformation Zone (mm)

0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
400
450
500
550
600
650
700
750 Depth of 1/2 thickness
Depth of 1/10 thickness
Depth of 1/20 thickness
Sub-Surface
Reduction=20%
Rolling Speed=65 rpm
Initial Temp.=740 C
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

(

C
)
Time (s)









a
b
Fig. 6 Predicted results under a rolling speed of 65 rpm, reduction of
20%, and initial temperature of 740C. a Predicted temperature
variations. b Predicted strain rate variations
726 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:721728
3 months. When comparing the flow stress behavior of age
and non-aged samples, it is expected that the aged samples
show higher yield stress and lower ductility, particularly for
those samples quenched after warm rolling. This behavior
was observed for a series of samples. Figure 7 is an
example of the stress-strain behavior of the aged and the
non-aged sample rolled at an initial temperature of 740C,
rolling speed of 65 rpm, and reduction 20%. However, in a
few specimens, a reversed behavior was observed. Figure
8 shows the flow stress of the aged and non-aged samples
rolled at initial temperature of 550C, rolling speed of
43 rpm, and reduction of 12%. It can be seen that the
mechanical properties are not changed significantly and
even the yield stress is slightly reduced. The reason for this
behavior may be attributed to the occurrence of dynamic
strain ageing during the pervious warm-rolling operation.
For the second sample, the predictions show that dynamic
strain aging is possible in some regions of deforming
body, shown as region A in Fig. 4. Thus, during the
following static strain ageing the already-formed precip-
itates start to grow, and in this way, the nucleation stage is
omitted during the subsequent static strain ageing process.
Therefore, the samples that are subjected to dynamic strain
ageing, the kinetics of subsequent static strain ageing is
expected to be changed in comparison with those samples
warm rolled within the smooth yielding region.
5 Conclusions
The warm-rolling process is mathematically modeled by
means of a two-dimensional finite element analysis and
neural network model. Then, by utilizing the predicted
results, the phenomenon of dynamic strain ageing during
warm rolling is studied. In addition, employing mechanical
testing, the occurrence of static strain ageing and its
connection to the warm-rolling conditions is investigated.
The results demonstrate that static strain ageing occurs in
the period of 3 months and the yield stress of warm-rolled
steel increases. However, dynamic strain aging may also
occur during warm rolling, particularly at relatively low
rolling speeds and this phenomenon may change the
kinetics of subsequent static strain ageing. While for the
sample that experiences dynamic strain ageing during
warm rolling, the flow stress and elongation do not change
significantly.
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Aged Sample
T0=740 C
Reduction=20%
Rolling Speed=65 rpm
Air cooled
S
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
Strain


Fig. 7 Comparison between the aged and non-aged stress-strain
behavior for the sample rolled at initial temperature of 740C, rolling
speed of 65 rpm, and reduction 20%
0.0 0.1 0.3 0.2 0.4
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
Aged Sample
T0=550 C
Reduction=12%
Rolling Speed=43 rpm
Air Cooled
S
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
Strain
0.5
Fig. 8 Comparison between the aged and non-aged stress-strain
behavior for the sample rolled at initial temperature of 550C, rolling
speed of 43 rpm, and reduction of 12%
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:721728 727
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