Hot Workability and Dynamic Recrystallization Behaviors of Medium-Carbon Cr-Mo Alloys for High Strength Cold Heading Quality Wire Rod

Abstract

The hot deformation behavior of medium-carbon Cr-Mo alloy, which has been developed for high strength cold-heading quality wire rod, was investigated to evaluate its hot workability. A flow curve was derived using the hot torsion test, under conditions with temperatures of 1173-1273 K and strain rates of 0.1-1.0 s-1. At lower deformation temperature and higher strain rate, the overall stress of the flow curve increased, and the flow curve showed a three-stage variation related to the offset of dynamic recrystallization and dynamic recovery. First, as the strain increased, the stress also increased due to work hardening, and reached peak stress. After that, the stress decreased due to softening of the dynamic recrystallization. And when the effect of the dynamic recrystallization and the dynamic recovery reached equilibrium, the stress became steady state. In this paper, the constitutive equation of the peak stress was established using a form of a hyperbolic sine function, and here the thermal activation energy for deformation of the specimen was 244.90 kJ/mol. The peak stresses calculated from the constitutive equation were in good agreement with the experimental results. The dynamic-recrystallized grains were observed using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). It showed that the volume fraction of dynamic recrystallization increased as the strain increased under hot deformation. Based on the Avrami kinetic equation, a dynamic recrystallization kinetic model was established. The volume fraction of dynamic recrystallization was predicted from the kinetic model, and can be applied at arbitrary deformation temperatures and strain rates.