Mechanical properties of fine-grained dual phase low-carbon steels based on dynamic transformation

The fine grained dual phase (FG-DP) steel with ferrite grains of 2-4.5 μm and martensite islands smaller than 3 μm was obtained through the mechanism of deformation-enhanced ferrite transformation (DEFT). Mechanical properties of the steel were tested at room temperature. The results indicated that with a similar volume fraction of martensite (about 20vol%), FG-DP steel exhibited a superior combination of higher strength and more rapid strain hardening at low strains compared with the coarse-grained dual phase (CG-DP) steel obtained by critical annealing. The combination of higher strength, large elongation, and more rapid strain hardening of FG-DP steel can be attributed to the fine ferrite grain and finely dispersed martensite islands. In addition, the uniformly distributed martensite islands in FG-DP steel have smaller interspacing compared with that of CG-DP steel. So, at the initial plastic deformation stage, the plastic deformation of ferrite was restrained and more pronounced load was transferred from ferrite to martensite. The plastic deformation of martensite in FG-DP steel started earlier.