Development of microstructure and texture in Fe-26Mn-3Si-3Al alloy during cold-rolling and annealing

Fe-26 wt.% Mn-3 wt.% Si-3 wt.% Al alloy was cast, forged, hot-rolled at temperatures between 1200 degrees C and 900 degrees C and cold-rolled with 5-66% reductions in thickness. The specimens which were cold-rolled 57% were annealed in the temperature range 500-750 degrees C. Microstructure and texture of this alloy, which has a low stacking fault energy, were evaluated after cold-rolling and after subsequent annealing, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy showed that mechanical twinning and martensitic transformations (gamma -> epsilon and gamma -> epsilon -> alpha ') took place during cold-rolling. The crystallographic Burgers relations {0 0 0 1}epsilon parallel to {1 1 1}gamma and < 1 1 2 0 >epsilon parallel to < 1 1 0 >gamma between martensite (epsilon) and austenite (gamma), were found in the cold-rolled material. During annealing the reverse martensite to austenite transformation occurred. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.