Acoustic Emission Technique to Study the Effect of Strain Rate on the Deformation Behaviour of TRIP Aided Steels with Different Matrix Microstructures

Acoustic Emission (AE) signals generated during the tensile deformation of three TRIP-aided steels with different matrix microstructures were monitored. The tensile tests were carried out at four different strain rates varying from 3.33×10−5 to 3.33×10−2 s−1 and additional intermittent tests were carried out at the lowest and highest strain rates to estimate the extent of deformation induced austenite to martensite transformation using X-ray diffraction analysis. Good correlation was obtained between AE and X-ray diffraction analyses. Both techniques showed that increasing strain rate restricted progressive transformation of retained austenite to martensite. The energy of continuous AE signals generated during tensile test conducted at high strain rate (3.33×10−2 s−1) was found to be directly proportional to the fraction of martensite formed. The proportionality constant (k) was influenced by the matrix microstructure; steels with polygonal ferrite matrix manifesting a higher k value than steels with annealed martensite matrix or bainitic ferrite matrix.