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2nd International Congress on High Manganese Steels HMnS 2014 - Aachen

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New stainless TWIP steel characterized by excellent plasticity and suitable for
light-weighting steel components for automotive applications.

Author: Alessandro Ferraiuolo
Affiliation: Centro Sviluppo Materiali S.p.A., Rome , Italy
a.ferraiuolo@c-s-m.it

Abstract: A new austenitic stainless steel grade with low Ni and 10%wt Mn, showing a
TWIP behavior, is obtained through a proper design of the steel chemical composition
(SFE value) and processing conditions. Room temperature tensile tests reveal a high
strength and excellent elongation to rupture both at the same level of the conventional
Fe-22Mn-0.6C TWIP steel. The analysis carried out by means of optical microscopy,
transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction reveal that the plastic
deformation at room temperature is controlled by dislocation glide and mechanical
twinning. The SFE value of the investigated steel is measured by means of TEM
analysis of extended nodes. A modified Kocks-Mecking-Bouaziz work hardening model
is used to characterize the TWIP effect in the temperature range -50C 100C.
Key words: Austenitic stainless steels; Stacking fault energy; Work hardening.


1. Introduction
The introduction of the TWIP effect in the stainless steels, through a proper steel
chemical composition and SFE design, could lead to achieve a new TWIP steel family
with quite interesting mechanical properties, enlarged field of applications and cost
saving opportunity. The steel chemical composition proposed in the present work, Fe-
17Cr-Mn-Ni-Cu, confirmed that the TWIP effect can improve significantly the
mechanical properties of stainless steels in which nickel is substituted by amounts of
manganese and interstitial elements such as carbon and nitrogen to assist the
stabilization of the austenitic structure. This result is achieved thanks to the high work
hardening rate originated by nucleation of mechanical twins during deformation
(dynamic Hall-Petch effect) [1,2].

2. Materials
The steel investigated is produced by induction melting under controlled atmosphere
and cast to 80Kg ingot. The ingot is laboratory hot rolled by means of a quarto hot
rolling mill adopting an entry temperature of 1200C and finishing temperature of 900C
with a strip thickness of 3.0 mm. The hot rolled strip is annealed at 1100C for 60s and
cold rolled down to 1.0 mm strip thickness. After cold deformation the microstructure is
recrystallized by annealing treatment at 1100C for 60s [3].


3. Results and discussion
3.1 Evolution of the microstructure during deformation at room temperature
The microstructure of cold rolled and annealed sample consists of a fully equiaxed
austenitic structure, with few annealing twins, and an average grain size of 35m. The
evolution of the microstructure with the progress of deformation is investigated by
means of optical metallography (LOM) and EBSD analysis on tensile specimens
interrupted at c =0.05, c =0.095, c =0.18, c =0.26, c =0.36. X-ray diffraction pattern
2nd International Congress on High Manganese Steels HMnS 2014 - Aachen
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analysis (SIEMENS D500) is carried out on cold rolled and annealed strip and on
interrupted tensile specimens. The results confirm that austenite is the only phase
present in the annealed specimen and it remains stable during deformation. At low
strain values (c =0.05) no twins are observed in the microstructure both at the LOM and
EBSD (fig.1) and therefore in the early stage of deformation the work hardening is
associated only to dislocation glide. The onset of mechanical twinning activity is
detected in the sample deformed at the true strain c =0.095 consisting of thin twins on
the primary twinning system (fig.1).
Increasing the strain, from c =0.18 up to c=0.36 the mechanical twins activity increases
significantly and at higher strain (c =0.26, c =0.36) the mechanical twinning structure
appears well-developed on two active twinning systems (primary and secondary). The
twin volume fraction evolution during deformation represents an important parameter for
TWIP steels. To describe the inhomogeneous character of the twinning activity by
means of a rule of mixture it is introduced the volume fraction of grains with mechanical
twin activity F (so 1-F is the fraction of grains with low or absent twin activity) and the
evolution in twin volume fraction f with strain. We can argue that both f and F depend
on strain, strain rate and SFE. The relationship between f and F as a function of strain
is investigated at room temperature on the interrupted tensile specimens, resulting that
in the range of true strain c= 0.0950.36 a rough linear relationship between f and F with
the ratio f/F close to 0.2.

a) b) c)

Figure 1: Microstructure evolution with the progress of deformation: a) c =0.05; b) c
=0.095; c) c =0.26.



3.2 SFE measurement by means of TEM observation of extended node
The SFE is measured by JEOL 3200FS-HR TEM (300 kV) on thin foil by means of the
extended nodes method. The equation of Ruff and Ives [4] based on the theory of
Brown and Tholens [5] is used to evaluate the SFE from the inscribed node radius. The
Burgers vector is identified for each node and the radius measured according the
procedure described in [6]. The average SFE value found is 35.7 1.2 mJ/m
2
.


3.3 Tensile properties characterization in the temperature range -50C 100C.
Tensile tests at a strain rate of 310
-4
s
-1
are carried out at 6 temperatures in the range -
50C 100C. Figure 2a shows the results in terms of proof stress, tensile strength and
elongation to rupture at different temperature. It is noteworthy that the tensile properties
are strongly dependent on test temperature. At room temperature the steel exhibits
excellent mechanical properties combining high strength and ductility. The tensile
strength is about 1.1 GPa and the total elongation to failure is 76%.
2nd International Congress on High Manganese Steels HMnS 2014 - Aachen
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a)
b)
Figure 2: a) Tensile properties of the stainless TWIP steel at different temperature; b)
Kocks-Mecking curves at different temperatures.

At higher temperature, between 60C and 100C, the elongation to rupture decreases
(5060%). Conversely, decreasing the test temperature in the range 0C -20C, the
proof stress and tensile strength increase to respectively 390-400MPa and 14001700
MPa. The elongation to rupture remains quite high around 80%. The increase of proof
stress at low temperature could be related to interstitialdislocation interaction through a
pinning action on free dislocations determining an increase of the friction stress.
Decreasing furthermore the temperature down to -50C the elongation to rupture
decreases down to 45% and both proof stress and tensile strength increase
significantly. Figure.2b illustrates the Kocks-Mecking work hardening analysis of the true
stress-true strain curves. At room temperature a high work hardening coefficient (about
G/40) in the strain range 0.09c<0.3 is revealed. At temperature below -20C a huge
change of work hardening curve is detected The hardening coefficient is about G/30 at -
20C and G/15 at -50C. This behavior is related to formation of strain induced o-
martensite during deformation (TRIP effect). Through optical microscopy observations
and ferritoscope measurement the martensite volume fraction on specimens deformed
(c= 0.26) at the temperature 0C, -20C and -50C resulted respectively 5%, 18%, 48%.


3.4 Modified Kocks-Mecking-Bouaziz model
The work hardening behavior of the steel is investigated by means of a slightly modified
Kocks-Mecking-Bouaziz model aiming to define the evolution of the volume fraction of
twins through the m-parameter in the temperature range tested.
Assuming that the obstacles to dislocation glide are grain boundaries, forest
dislocations and twins, the expression for storage rate of dislocation in presence of
inhomogeneous mechanical twinning distribution, can be given by:
( )

c

Ma k
d
F k
f e
f
d
F
b
M
d
d

|
|
.
|

\
|

\
|
|
.
|
+ +

\
|
|
|
.
|
+

+ =
1
) 1 (
1 2
1
(1)

where d is the grain size, k is a constant and a is the dynamic recovery constant. The
evolution in twin volume fraction with strain becomes, according to above definition of f
and F [7,8],

( ) ( ) c m f f
o
= exp 1
,
( ) | | c m F F
o
= exp 1


2nd International Congress on High Manganese Steels HMnS 2014 - Aachen
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where the parameter m is a function of the stacking fault energy and applied strain rate,
f
o
and F
o
are the saturation value assumed equal respectively to 0.2 and 1. The results
of the work hardening model calculations are reported in table 1 and summarized as
follows:
- The maximum TWIP effect occurs around room temperature. The maximum work
hardening rate is instead achieved at temperature below 0C due to occurrence of
the TRIP effect.
- The dynamic recovery increases markedly with temperature. This result and the
lower m-parameter could explain the lower work hardening behavior at temperature
higher than 60C.

Table 1: Dynamic recovery a and m-parameter at different temperature calculated by K-
M-B model. (*) SFE calculated according to Ericsson equation [9,10].



4. Conclusions
A new TWIP austenitic stainless steel is developed with a composition Fe-17Cr-10Mn-
Ni-Cu exhibiting a TWIP behavior in the temperature range 0C-100C. At temperature
below 0C, the austenite becomes unstable under deformation and an increasing TRIP
effect occurs during deformation. Within the TWIP and TWIP+TRIP-assisted range
(-20C100C) the mechanical properties are excellent in terms of elongation to rupture
and high tensile strength. For the investigated steel a wider applicability can be
envisaged not only for automobile components with increased crashworthiness, but also
for production of high demanding products, for which the corrosion resistance together
with mechanical properties and good forming ability are of great concern. Finally it is
noteworthy that investigated stainless TWIP steel is cheaper than conventional AISI304
of about 30%.


5. References
[1] U. F. Kocks, H Mecking, Progr. Mat. Scie., vol 48 2003 p. 171.
[2] Bouaziz O, Guelton N. Materials Science and Engineering: A 2001;319-321.
[3] F. de las Cuevas, M. Reis, A. Ferraiuolo, G. Pratolongo, L.P. Karjalainen, V. Garca
Navas, J. Gil Sevillano: Adv. Mat. Res. Vols. 89-91 (2010) pp 153-158.
[4] A.W. Ruff, L. K. Ives, Acta Met. Vol 15, 1967 189-198.
[5] L. M. Brown, A. R. Tholen, Discuss. Faraday Soc. 38, 35 (1964).
[6] M. J. Whelan, Proc. Roy. Soc. A249, p.114-118 (1959).
[7] Olson GB, Cohen M.,Metall Trans A, vol 6A, 791 (1975).
[8] Olson GB, Cohen M.,Metall Trans A, 1976;7:1905.
[9] T. Ericsson, Acta Met. 14, 853 (1966).
[10] L. Remy, Acta Met.,vol 25 pp.173-179, 1977
SFE
(mJ/m
2
)
T
(C)
a m
(-) 33 0 0.18 1.52
36 20 0.44 2.45
(-) 41 60 1.06 1.93
(-) 47 100 1.97 1.04

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