Microstructural Evolution with Annealing of Ultralow Carbon IF Steel Severely Deformed by Six-Layer Stack ARB Process

A sample of ultra low carbon IF steel was processed by six-layer stack accumulative roll-bonding (ARB) and annealed. The ARB was conducted at ambient temperature after deforming the as-received material to a thickness of 0.5 mm by 50% cold rolling. The ARB was performed for a six-layer stacked, i.e. a 3 mm thick sheet, up to 3 cycles (an equivalent strain of ~7.0). In each ARB cycle, the stacked sheets were, first, deformed to 1.5 mm thickness by 50% rolling and then reduced to 0.5 mm thickness, as the starting thickness, by multi-pass rolling without lubrication. The specimen after 3 cycles was then annealed for 0.5 h at various temperatures ranging from 673 to 973 K. The microstructural evolution with the annealing temperature for the 3-cycle ARB processed IF steel was investigated in detail by transmission electron microscopy observation. The ARB processed IF steel exhibited mainly a dislocation cell lamella structure with relatively high dislocation density in which the subgrains were partially observed. The selected area diffraction (SAD) patterns suggested that the misorientation between neighboring cells or subgrains was very small. The thickness of the grains increased in a gradual way up to 873 K, but above 898 K it increased drastically. As a result, the grains came to have an equiaxed morphology at 898 K, in which the width and the thickness of the grains were almost identical. The grain growth occurred actively at temperatures above 923 K.