Modeling of critical strain for dynamic recrystallization of niobium microalloyed steels

Abstract The critical strain for dynamic recrystallization (DRX) is most important in designing rolling schedules for the refinement of grain size by boundary-induced transformation mechanisms. Modeling of the critical strain for DRX from the stress-strain curves obtained from hot compression was physically built in this paper. The stress-strain behaviour of materials during hot deformation should be a combination of work-hardening and recrystallization softening. Before DRX occurred, the stress-strain behaviours could be described by a constitutive equation in which basic strain hardening and the effect of strain rate and temperature on stress-strain behaviour are included. Once DRX was promoted, obvious deviation between the experimental and calculated stress-strain curves appeared, which denoted the critical strain for DRX. The modeling in this work could be used not only to accurately calculate the critical strain for DRX but also to analyze the dynamic softening behaviours during hot deformation. To validate the calculated results, the stress-strain database was analyzed in the H beam sample deformed at 1000 °C with a strain rate of 0.1/s, and a critical strain of 0.22 was obtained by this novel method as an example. The calculated result is in good agreement with the experimental data obtained by micrographical observations.