Spheroidisation behaviour of 1.0 wt-% carbon steel processed by equal channel angular extrusion and annealing

Abstract

The present work deals with the spheroidisation behaviour of pearlitic cementite in 1.0 wt-% carbon steel subjected to equal channel angular extrusion followed by annealing. The influences of intense strain and annealing temperature on the morphological change of cementite were investigated. Intense strain even by single equal channel angular extrusion was sufficiently beneficial to accelerate spheroidisation kinetics upon annealing, resulting in reducing annealing time required for achieving fully globular cementites with uniform distribution. An optimum condition to obtain the fully spheroidised microstructure of 1.0 wt-% carbon steel was suggested. In addition, the correlation between processing variables and spheroidisation of 1.0 wt-% carbon steel was explored based on microstructural evolution.