Applying the texture analysis for optimizing thermomechanical treatment of high manganese twinning-induced plasticity steel

Texture analysis was applied to determine the optimal processing parameters for the thermomechanical treatment of an Fe-23Mn-1.5Al-0.3C twinning-induced plasticity steel. A simple processing route consisting of cold rolling and recovery annealing was used to explore the possibility of tailoring the mechanical properties of this steel. The thermal stability of mechanically induced twin boundaries provided high retained yield strength after recovery annealing. In addition, recovery processes facilitated a significantly improved ductility compared to the cold-rolled material. It was shown that the analysis of texture evolution during deformation and annealing can be used as an effective tool to optimize cold rolling degree and annealing conditions. A dislocation-based constitutive model was used in order to validate that the CuT texture component can be used as an indirect indicator for the evolution of the deformation twin density. Furthermore, simulation results identified recovery as the dominating softening mechanism under the applied annealing conditions. (C) 2014 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.