On the influence of deformation mechanism during cold and warm rolling on annealing behavior of a 304 stainless steel

In the present study, a 304 stainless steel was deformed at different temperatures of room temperature (cold rolling) and 200 degrees C (warm rolling) for elucidating the distinct deformation mechanisms, and then, the influence of the deformed microstructures on the subsequent microstructural evolution and texture development during annealing treatments was studied. The results indicated that deformation-induced martensite transformation was the dominant deformation mechanism during cold rolling, and a mixed microstructure consisting of similar to 60% volume fraction of alpha'-martensite and deformed austenite was obtained. Deformation twinning of austenite dominated the deformation during warm rolling. The underlying reason was the increasing SFE with deformation temperature, which inhibited the martensitic transformation but promoted the formation of deformation twins. On annealing, the recrystallization of retained austenite in cold-rolled samples was retarded because of martensitic reversion compared to the warm-rolled samples. Completely recrystallized structure with average grain size of similar to 0.7 mu m was obtained in both cold and warm-rolled samples after annealing at 800 degrees C. Texture evolution indicated that martensitic reversion enhanced the intensity of {110} < 112 > texture in cold-rolled and annealed samples. However, the final recrystallization texture components were consisted of {110} < 112 > and {113} < 211 > regardless of rolling process. Furthermore, structure-property relationship was established, and combination of high strength and excellent plasticity can be obtained in both cold and warm-rolled sheets by tuning the subsequent annealing parameters.