Ultrafinegrained Microstructure in a Medium Manganese Steel after Warm Rolling without Intercritical Annealing

Medium manganese steels are a grade of the third generation of advanced high strength steels (AHSS) that combine ductility, high strength and toughness for crashing resistance, determining characteristics for application in the automotive industry. During processing these steels are subjected to a hot and cold rolling followed by intercritical annealing in the field of austenite and ferrite phases. On the other side, the warm rolling processing is capable to reduce costs and operating time due to a single operation. The aim of this work was to follow, along warm rolling, the microstructure evolution. This aim was realized by optical and scanning electron microscopy analysis, X-ray diffraction, Vickers microhardness and EBSD technique in an 8Mn-0.08C steel. A very refined and deformed microstructure in warm-rolled condition was obtained, with a higher volume fraction of retained austenite without hot-rolled as previous processing step, which result in high tensile strength and total elongation. The texture shows a greater intensity of the alpha-fiber components as a function of higher strain in this thermomechanical processing.