Influence of Hot Deformation and Cooling Conditions on the Microstructures of Low Carbon Microalloyed Steels

The transformation behaviours and microstructural characteristics of three low carbon microalloyed steels were investigated. In particular, the effects of deformation and cooling conditions were studied by means of compression tests. It was found that at higher cooling rate (45℃/s),the transformation products was mainly granular bainite, the intragranular nucleated bainitic ferrite grew in different directions, and the second phase particles of M/A constituent uniformly distributed in the bainitic ferrite matrix. When the cooling rate was decreased to 25℃/s or 15℃/s, the resulting microstructure was converted to a mixture of polygonal hypoeutectoid ferrite and granular bainite, whose percentage was reduced. As the cooling rate was lowered to 8℃/s, the microstructure consisted chiefly of polygonal ferrite with a few amounts of M/A and pearlite.