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A novel approach was used to produce an ultrafine grain structure in low carbon steels with a wide range of hardenability. This included warm deformation of supercooled austenite followed by reheating in the austenite region and cooling (RHA). The ultrafine ferrite structure was independent of steel composition. However, the mechanism of ferrite refinement changed with the steel quench hardenability. In a relatively low hardenable steel, the ultrafine structure was produced through dynamic strain induced transformation, whereas the ferrite refinement was formed by static transformation in steels with high quench hardenability. The use of a model Ni-30Fe austenitic alloy revealed that the deformation temperature has a strong effect on the nature of the intragranular defects. There was a transition temperature below which the cell dislocation structure changed to laminar microbands. It appears that the extreme refinement of ferrite is due to the formation of extensive high angle intragranular defects at these low deformation temperature that then act as sites for static transformation.

Maraging steels are a group of martensitic steels possessing ultra high strength along with good fracture toughness. Conventional 18 wt.% Ni maraging steels are very costly in part because of expensive alloying elements such as Ni and Co. Replacement of Ni by cheaper elements like Mn has been studied by many researchers. Fe–Ni–Mn ternary alloys show good age hardenability formation of nanometer sized intermetallic precipitates such as f.c.t. θ-NiMn during aging. These alloys are ductile in the solution annealed condition but suffer from severe embrittlement after aging by intergranular fracture along prior austenite grain boundaries (PAGBs). Discontinuous coarsening of grain boundary precipitates was found as the main source of embrittlement. In this paper the effect of cold rolling on the mechanical properties of Fe-10Ni-7Mn steel was investigated. Cold rolling for 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 90% were carried out on a solution annealed material with subsequent aging at 753 K. Improvements in the tensile properties of the as-deformed and aged alloys were found. Substantial improvement is found at thickness reductions larger than 60%, where severe plastic deformation and ultrafine grain formation are realized.

This work aims to investigate whether accumulative roll bonding (ARB) is an effective grain refinement technique for ultra-low-carbon steel strips containing 0.004% C. For this purpose, a number of ARB processes were performed at 500 °C, with 50% reduction in area of each rolling pass. It was found that both the ultimate grain size achieved, as well as the degree of bonding, depend on number of rolling pass and reduction of area as a whole. The mean grain size was obtained using AFM was about 130nm. The mechanical properties after rolling and cooling were obtained. Also, the fracture surfaces were studied by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). It was concluded that metal's tensile strengths increased by 334% while the ductility dropped from a prerolled value of 50.5% to 2.6%. Effect of wire brushing on samples observed too. It increased on the wire brushed sheet for 7 HV. The rolling process was stopped when cracking of the edges became pronounced.

The fatigue-induced damage and crack growth behavior were studied on the ultrafine grained copper processed by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP). At high stresses, fatigue cracks were initiated at the shear bands (SBs) formed along the shear plane of the final ECAP. At low stresses, the grain coarsening occurred due to dynamic recrystallization. The slip bands were then formed inside these grains and subsequently served as an initiation sites for cracks. The direction of crack growth, either 45° or perpendicular to the loading axis, varied depending on the stress. The formation and growth mechanisms of fatigue crack are discussed based on the micrographic observation of surface damage.

The present research is concerned with the aluminum layer of a loosely packed tri-layer copper-aluminum-copper composite deformed by ECAE process. Electron back scattered diffraction (EBSD), transmission electron microscope, and X-ray technique were employed to investigate the detailed changes occurring in the microtexture, microstructure (cell size and misorientation), and dislocation density evolution during consecutive passes of ECAE process performed on the composite based on route Bc. According to tensile test results, the yield stress of the aluminum layer was increased significantly after application of ECAE throughout the four repeated passes and then slightly decreased. An ultrafine grain size within the range of 500-600 nm was obtained in the Al layer by increasing the thickness of copper layers. It was observed that the reduction of grain size in the aluminum layer is nearly 57% more than that of an ECAE-ed single layer aluminum billet. Also, the grain refinement of the aluminum layer is accelerated throughout 8 passes. This observation was attributed to the higher rate of dislocation interaction, cell formation and texture development during the ECAE of the composite compared to those of the single billet.