The Effect of High Temperature Grain Refinement on the Isothermal Ferrite Grain Growth Kinetics in Steel S460

Abstract

Plate steel S460 is intercritically rolled during the final stages of industrial processing. A series of experiments to represent the preliminary stages of an intercritical simulation were completed and the isothermal austenite to ferrite transformation kinetics investigated. The growth of the ferrite grains was interpreted using the classic JMAK model and the effect of processing history also examined. A double austenite deformation at 1323 K, to a true strain of 0.2, led to the most acceptable starting microstructure for the extended simulation. The role of niobium in this preliminary simulation is also considered.