Low Carbon Low Alloy Submicro-Steel with Nano-Precipitation

In the present work, low carbon low alloy submicro-steel sheet has been developed successfully by severe warm-rolling (SWR) at 500 °C through a single pass. The result shows submicro-structure can be fabricated by severe rolling. The formation of the submicro-structure is attributed to the grain refinement mechanism induced by the severe plastic deformation (SPD). The refinement involves the cutting and subdividing of the original micro-crystals into ultrafine grains by dense dislocation arrays. To a certain extent, dynamic recrystallization in ferrite during SWR also seems to contribute to the formation of the submicro-structure. The thermal stability of the submicro-steel was investigated by annealing the steel at different temperatures. The investigation indicated that the submicro-steel can be subjected to annealing at 550°C without apparent grain growth. The unusually high thermal stability can be attributed to the pining effect of numerous uniformly distributed nano-precipitates in the steel. The sizes of the nano-precipitates belong to two different orders. The average diameter of the large precipitates is about 30 nm and the smaller one less than 10 nm.