Achieving Excellent Strength–Ductility and Impact Toughness Combination by Cyclic Quenching in Medium Mn TRIP-Aided Steel

A novel heat treatment process combined cyclic quenching (CQ) with austenite reversion treatment (ART) is proposed to obtain high strength–ductility and high-impact toughness combination in Fe-0.18C-8.92Mn-3.43Al (in mass%) steel. The process referred as CQ-ART was designed for accomplishing the following objectives: (i) refine the prior austenite grains during cyclic quenching process, (ii) further obtain the refined austenite–ferrite block and (iii) improve the stabilities of retained austenite with Mn/C enrichment during ART process. The outstanding product of tensile strength and total elongation of CQ-ART-treated steels was 41.53 and 37.39 GPa%, respectively, and higher than the ART steel of 27.45 GPa%. The highest Charpy impact toughness of CQ-ART steel can reach to 221 J, which is mainly attributed to the refined grains and discontinuous transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP) effect.