Tensile behavior of TRIP-aided multi-phase steels studied by in situ neutron diffraction

TRIP-aided multi-phase steels were made by thermo-mechanically controlled process, where the ferrite grain size and the amount of the retained austenite were changed by controlling process conditions. The tensile behavior of four steels was studied by in situ neutron diffraction. It is found that the retained austenite bearing about 1.0 wt% C is plastically harder than the ferrite matrix. The steel with a ferrite grain size of approximate to2.0 mum showed tensile strength of 1.1 GPa and a uniform elongation of 18.4%, in which stress-induced martensitic transformation occurs during plastic deformation but a considerable amount of austenite remains even after the onset of necking. It is concluded that the enhancement of uniform elongation is caused mainly by the work-hardening due to the hard austenite and martensite, where the contribution of the transformation strain is negligible. (C) 2004 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.