Plastic localization phenomena in a Mn-alloyed austenitic steel

A 0.5 wt pct C, 22 wt pct Mn austenitic steel, recently proposed for fabricating automotive body structures by cold sheet forming, exhibits plastic localizations (PLs) during uniaxial tensile tests, yet showing a favorable overall strength and ductility. No localization happens during biaxial Erichsen cupping tests. Full-thickness tensile and Erichsen specimens, cut from as-produced steel sheets, were polished and tested at different strain rates. During the tensile tests, the PL phenomena consist first of macroscopic deformation bands traveling along the tensile axis, and then of a series of successive stationary deformation bands, each adjacent to the preceding ones; both types of bands involve the full specimen width and yield a macroscopically observable surface relief. No comparable surface relief was observed during the standard Erichsen tests. Because the stress state is known to influence PL phenomena, reduced-width Erichsen tests were performed on polished sheet specimens, in order to explore the transition from biaxial to uniaxial loading; surface relief lines were observed on a 20-mm-wide specimen, but not on wider ones

Effect of High Tensile Strain Rate on the Evolution of Microstructure in Fe-Mn-C-Al Twinning-Induced Plasticity (TWIP) Steel

Fe-17.8Mn-0.52C-0.5Al TWIP steel has been investigated under high-strain rate conditions. Twinning along with stacking faults and high dislocation densities in the austenite matrix has been evaluated by X-ray diffraction line profile analysis and transmission electron microscopy. The samples strained at 100 s(-1) show a gradient in the evolution of the dislocation density along the gage length except the fracture end where the density shows a decrease. In case of the samples strained at 1 s(-1), the evolution of density shows attainment of a near-saturation stage. Electron backscatter diffraction analysis shows that the decrease in the dislocation density as well as near-saturation stage is due to dynamic recovery as well as dynamic recrystallization at region near the fracture end. The dynamically recrystallized grains are related to the deformed matrix through twin relationship