Tailoring the Ductility Characteristics of Lean‐Medium Mn Quenching and Partitioning Steels with Varying C Contents

Abstract

During recent years, quenching and partitioning (Q&P) steels have gained strong interest due to their promising lightweight potential and crashworthiness. With their microstructure consisting of tempered martensite (α″) and C‐enriched retained austenite (RA), they are characterized by balanced ductility, combining the formability properties of conventional dual‐phase and complex‐phase steels at elevated strength levels. This study thoroughly examines three chemical compositions with 4.0 wt% Mn, 1.5 wt% Si, and varying C contents between 0.10 and 0.20 wt% with regard to their structure–properties relationship. In this context, various parameters are derived from tensile testing to assess the formability behavior of the investigated steels. The results clearly demonstrate a strong effect of the RA fraction and its mechanical stability on the ductility characteristics of lean‐medium Mn Q&P steels. Generally, the optimum exploitation of the transformation‐induced plasticity effect favors high global ductility, but the resulting heterogeneities in the microstructure remarkably impair the local one. By increasing the C content, larger RA fractions can be stabilized, shifting the ductility characteristics from rather local toward global. For this reason, medium C content of 0.15 wt% allows for the adjustment of the optimum microstructure leading to desired balanced ductility.