Nanostructured steel with high work-hardening by the exploitation of the thermal stability of mechanically induced twins

It has recently been observed that the nanometre-scale mechanical twins introduced by prestraining high-manganese twinning-induced plasticity steels at room temperature are stable up to a temperature of 625 degrees C. Thus an excellent combination of the yield stress and the work-hardening rate can be achieved by cold rolling followed by a recovery treatment to reduce the dislocation density without modifying the twinning nanostructure. (C) 2009 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.