Evolution of flow stress in aluminium during ultra-high straining at elevated temperatures. Part II

Review on Dynamic Recrystallization of Martensitic Stainless Steels during Hot Deformation: Part I—Experimental Study

The evolution of the microstructure changes during hot deformation of high-chromium content of stainless steels (martensitic stainless steels) is reviewed. The microstructural changes taking place under high-temperature conditions and the associated mechanical behaviors are presented. During the continuous dynamic recrystallization (cDRX), the new grains nucleate and growth in materials with high stacking fault energies (SFE). On the other hand, new ultrafine grains could be produced in stainless steel material irrespective of the SFE employing high deformation and temperatures. The gradual transformation results from the dislocation of sub-boundaries created at low strains into ultrafine grains with high angle boundaries at large strains. There is limited information about flow stress and monitoring microstructure changes during the hot forming of martensitic stainless steels. For this reason, continuous dynamic recrystallization (cDRX) is still not entirely understood for these types of metals. Recent studies of the deformation behavior of martensitic stainless steels under thermomechanical conditions investigated the relationship between the microstructural changes and mechanical properties. In this review, grain formation under thermomechanical conditions and dynamic recrystallization behavior of this type of steel during the deformation phase is discussed.

Microstructure Refinement of a Transformation-Induced Plasticity High-Entropy Alloy

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) have attracted extensive interest due to their unprecedented structure and mechanical performance. We recently proposed a series of novel corich twinning induced plasticity (TWIP) and transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) HEAs with superior tensile properties at room temperature; however, the hot deformation behavior has not been reported. Here, we investigated the dynamic recrystallization behavior and grain refinement of a representative TRIP-HEA, compressed at temperatures of 1123–1273 K with strain rates of 0.1–0.001 s⁻¹. We characterized the impact of the temperature and strain rate on the grain structure evolution. A constitutive equation was constructed to reveal the correlations between the flow stress, strain rate, temperature, and strain. The apparent activation energy was estimated to be ~385.7 kJ/mol. The discontinuous dynamic recrystallization played an important role in the grain refinement, particularly at a relatively higher temperature and a lower strain rate, and the volume fraction and morphology of the recrystallized grains exhibited a strong dependency on the Zener–Hollomon parameter. The study provides guidelines for the grain refinement of HEAs through thermomechanical processing.

A Physically Based Constitutive Model and Continuous Dynamic Recrystallization Behavior Analysis of 2219 Aluminum Alloy during Hot Deformation Process

The isothermal compression tests of the 2219 Al alloy were conducted at the temperature and the strain rate ranges of 623–773 K and 0.01–10 s⁻¹, respectively, and the deformed microstructures were observed. The flow curves of the 2219 Al alloy obtained show that flow stress decreases with the increase in temperature and/or the decrease in strain rate. The physically based constitutive model is applied to describe the flow behavior during hot deformation. In this model, Young’s modulus and lattice diffusion coefficient are temperature-dependent, and the creep exponent is regarded as a variable. The predicted values calculated by the constitutive model are in good agreement with the experimental results. In addition, it is confirmed that the main softening mechanism of the 2219 Al alloy during hot deformation is dynamic recovery and incomplete continuous dynamic recrystallization (CDRX) by the analysis of electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) micrographs. Moreover, CDRX can readily occur under the condition of high temperatures, low strain rates, and large strains. Meanwhile, the recrystallization grain size will also be larger.

Forging property, processing map, and mesoscale microstructural evolution modeling of a Ti-17 alloy with a lamellar (α+β) starting microstructure

This work identifies microstructural conversion mechanisms during hot deformation (at temperatures ranging from 750 °C to 1050 °C and strain rates ranging from 10^-3 s^-1 to 1 s^-1) of a Ti-5Al-2Sn-2Zr-4Mo-4Cr (Ti-17) alloy with a lamellar starting microstructure and establishes constitutive formulae for predicting the microstructural evolution using finite-element analysis. In the α phase, lamellae kinking is the dominant mode in the higher strain rate region and dynamic globularization frequently occurs at higher temperatures. In the β phase, continuous dynamic recrystallization is the dominant mode below the transition temperature, T_β (880~890 °C). Dynamic recovery tends to be more active at conditions of lower strain rates and higher temperatures. At temperatures above T_β , continuous dynamic recrystallization of the β phase frequently occurs, especially in the lower strain rate region. A set of constitutive equations modeling the microstructural evolution and processing map characteristic are established by optimizing the experimental data and were later implemented in the DEFORM-3D software package. There is a satisfactory agreement between the experimental and simulated results, indicating that the established series of constitutive models can be used to reliably predict the properties of a Ti-17 alloy after forging in the (α+β) region.