Microtextural study of variant selection by EBSD in a bainitic steel containing retained austenite

The phenomenon of variant selection in a bainitic steel containing retained austenite was investigated. The steel was hot-rolled below the Tnr to true strains of epsilon = 0.2 and epsilon = 0.8 in the austenite temperature range. The orientation relationships between bainite and austenite are expressed in Rodrigues space. A strain of 0.2 is shown to be insufficient to induce variant selection. A hot deformation of 0.8 leads to a much smaller number of variants being created, which are shown to be related to the slip systems active during austenite deformation.