Effect of prior-austenite grain size on the microstructure and mechanical properties of ultrafine-grained dual-phase layer-structured steel produced by hot rolling of intercritical annealed bainite

In this study, ultrafine-grained (UFG) ferrite/martensite (F/M) layer-structured (LS) steels were fabricated by hot rolling of intercritical annealed bainite steels with a rolling reduction of 75% to ease the strength-toughness trade-off dilemma, and the effect of prior-austenite grain (PAG) size of the bainitic steels on the microstructure and mechanical properties were systematically studied. The results showed that the layer thickness of martensite and ferrite was not affected by the PAG size, but the spacing of parallel lamellae bands (PLS), which evolved from the packet of bainite, decreased with the decrease of PAG size. The PLS had negligible influence on strength and ductility, but the decrease of the PLS led to the increase of delamination and both room temperature (RT) and cryogenic toughness enhancement. By reducing the PLS to introduce more delamination in this steel, the RT and cryogenic impact energy were increased 5.7 times (301 J) and 21 times (102 J at −196 °C), but without the sacrifice of strength (over 1.5 GPa) and ductility (total elongation of about 14%), compared with the initial bainite steel with the same composition respectively. The significantly improved toughness, especially the cryogenic toughness, was considered to result from the special UFG dual-phase layered structure as strain localization could be restrained and ductile fracture could be promoted by this special microstructure even at −196 °C. The cryogenic toughness improvement with the decrease of the spacing of PLS was confirmed to originate from the ductile crack path increase induced by delamination.