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 $$\left\langle {3\, 3\, 1} \right\rangle$$ 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 $$\left\langle {1\, 0\, 0} \right\rangle$$ fiber texture from the $$\left\langle {1\, 1\, 0} \right\rangle$$ 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.