Effect of plastic strain on grain size of ferrite transformed from deformed austenite in Si-Mn steel

Abstract

The effect of plastic strain on the grain size of ferrite transformed from deformed and unrecrystallised austenite has been investigated for a low carbon Si-Mn steel. An explicit finite element technique was used to evaluate the plastic strain distribution introduced by deformation in a specimen. The specimen was compressed by a pair of anvils controlled to keep the strain rate constant. The contact condition between the anvil and the specimen was determined by the experimental result from an identically deformed screw set in the specimen. The interrelation between the equivalent plastic strain epsiloneq, numerically obtained in the range 0.1<epsiloneq<4.2, and the experimental grain size of 2-9 m was analysed. The change in ferrite grain size caused by epsiloneq in the unrecrystallised austenite region has been discussed.