The effects of multi-cyclic thermo-mechanical treatment on the grain refinement and tensile properties of a metastable austenitic steel

The effects of the multi-cyclic cold rolling and annealing process on the grain refinement and tensile properties of a metastable austenitic steel were investigated. The multi-cyclic thermo-mechanical process yielded the bimodal ultrafine-grained structure through both the reverse transformation and recrystallization during annealing. The kinetics and temperatures of the reverse transformation were related to the average size of coarse grains. Not only yield and tensile strengths but also ductility of the bimodalgrained structure increased with the number of thermo-mechanical cycles. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.