Effect of Hot Deformation Temperature on the Restoration Mechanisms and Texture in a High-Cr Ferritic Stainless Steel

Abstract

The effect of hot deformation temperature on the deformed microstructures and evolution of microstructure and texture of a 21Cr Ti-Nb dual-stabilized ferritic stainless steel was studied using plane strain hot compression tests on a Gleeble 1500 thermomechanical simulator. The deformation was carried out at 550 - 950 °C with a strain of 0.5 at 1 s-1. The compression was followed by fast cooling to room temperature in order to study the deformed microstructures. Some specimens were heated from the deformation stage to either 750 or 950 °C and held for 0 or 30 s in order to study the nucleation process of recrystallization. The electron backscatter diffraction technique was used to analyze the resultant microstructures and textures. Lowering of the deformation temperature increased the rate of static recrystallization (SRX) and decreased the recrystallized grain size. After deformation at 550 and 600 °C and complete SRX, beneficial γ-fibre texture formed presumably as a result of nucleation at in-grain shear bands. SRX after deformation at 750 °C or above led to the formation of harmful α-fibre textures with weak γ-fibre.