Effect of Ausforming on the Macro- and Micro-texture of Bainitic Microstructures

The reason why variant selection phenomena occur in ausforming treatments is still not known. For that reason, in this work, the effect of compressive deformation on the macro and micro-texture of a bainitic microstructure was analyzed in a medium-carbon high-silicon steel subjected to ausforming treatments, where deformation was applied at 520 °C, 400 °C and 300 °C. The as-received material presented a very weak $$\left\langle {3\, 3\, 1} \right\rangle$$ 3 3 1 fiber texture along the rod axis, due to prior thermomechanical processing. For the samples isothermally heat-treated, it was detected that the bainitic ferrite inherited a $$\left\langle {1\, 0\, 0} \right\rangle$$ 1 0 0 fiber texture from the $$\left\langle {1\, 1\, 0} \right\rangle$$ 1 1 0 fiber texture present in the prior austenite. The intensity of this transformation texture was more pronounced as the deformation temperature decreased. Also, variant selection was examined at different scales by combining Electron-Backscattered Diffraction and X-ray Diffraction. The quantification of the fraction of crystallographic variants under certain conventions for every condition revealed variant selection in samples subjected to ausforming treatments, where these phenomena were stronger as the deformation temperature was lower. Finally, some of the theories proposed so far to explain these variant selection phenomena were tested, showing that variants were not selected based on their Bain group and that their selection can be better described in terms of their belonging to packets, if these are defined according to a global reference frame. This suggests that the phenomena might have to do with the effect of deformation mechanisms on the prior austenite.

Crystal Plasticity Modeling of Hot Extrusion Texture and Plasticity in a Titanium Alloy for an ICME Toolset

For a better use of titanium alloy in nuclear industry, development of integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) model is necessary to optimize alloy microstructure and thus the performance of titanium component. Within an ICME toolset, constitutive models play an important role in quantitatively capturing the interrelationship between processing, microstructure and property. In this paper, texture evolution during hot extrusion of near-alpha Ti6242S bar were studied with respect to the deformation and transformation texture component. Experimentally measured alpha and beta phase textures were instantiated in a three dimensional rate-dependent crystal plasticity model. The model is able to accurately predict the deformation textures of both the alpha and beta phases at extrusion temperature. While decomposition of the metastable beta phase occurred during the post-extrusion cooling, most of the transformation texture components formed aligned [0001] with the extrusion direction, which formed the primary component of extruded alpha texture. The transformation texture was predicted by numerically decomposing the simulated beta texture according to appropriate variant selection rule. Also demonstrated was the capability of a crystal plasticity model incorporating microstructure information, such as phase fraction and lamellar spacing. The crystal plasticity model was validated by comparing with the experimental elastoplasticity behaviors of Ti6242S bars with various microstructures.