Metal Science and Heat Treatment Vol. 49, Nos.

11 – 12, 2007

MECHANICAL AND CORROSION PROPERTIES

UDC 539.52:620.172

DUCTILITY OF STEEL AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS

I. Yu. Pyshmintsev,1 D. A. Pumpyanskii,2 and V. M. Farber3

Translated from Metallovedenie i Termicheskaya Obrabotka Metallov, No. 11, pp. 20 – 27, November, 2007.

A review of modern concepts of ductility of structural steel and its improvement is given based on published
data and own experiments. The main factors responsible for the ductility at the stage of uniform and concen-
trated deformation are considered.

INTRODUCTION
A number of researchers in the second half of the 20th
century scientifically substantiated methods for simultane-
ously raising the yield strength and lowering the cold brittle-
ness of low-alloy high-strength steels [1]. Yet no unique ap-
proach to the description and analysis of factors responsible
for strength and ductility has been developed, although it has
been established that the growth of structural strength of
metals and alloys is limited by the required ductility level.
This is caused, in particular, by an ambiguous interpretation
of the notion of ductility, which in the most acceptable form
can be defined as the capability of metal to be strained with-
out fracture under a simple loading scheme and constant
thermomechanical loading parameters.
The universal measure of ductility is the degree of shear
strain accumulated in the sample by the moment of failure in
mechanical testing under the above specified conditions.
Considering the impossibility of absolutely precise con-
stancy of thermomechanical parameters, the latter can be
averaged over the deformation period. Furthermore, ap-
proaches can differ substantially: metal scientists usually es-
timate tensile ductility of standard samples [2], specialists in
plastic metal working estimate ductility with respect to par-
ticular schemes of stress-strain state [3].
The ability of a material to undergo deformation from the
beginning of a plastic flow to fracture depends on its physi-
cal nature, the structure and phase composition, as well as
the loading conditions: the stressed state characterized by the
Lode parameter ms , the deformation temperature and rate,
1
Russian Research Institute of the Pipe Industry, Chelyabinsk,
Russia.
2
Metallurgical Pipe Company, Moscow, Russia.
3
Ural State Technical University, Ekaterinburg, Russia.
and the ratio s/T, where s is the mean normal stress, T is the
tangential stress intensity (the value derived from the second
invariant of the stress deviator) [2, 3].
The most frequently used measure (standard characteris-
tic) of the ductility of materials in metal science is tensile
constriction y and elongation d. The elongation is a genera-
lized conventional characteristic summing the uniform (du )
and concentrated (dc ) elongation.
The purpose of the present work is to use literature data
and results of our own experiments to analyze the factors re-
sponsible for the formation of various ductility parameters,
as well as formulate promising strengthening methods for in-
creasing the structural strength of steel.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Uniform Deformation
The diagram of deformation of polycrystals has a para-
bolic form with a constantly decreasing tangent of the angle q
which is interpreted as the strain hardening modulus or coef-
ficient. Based on that, the “true stress S – true strain e” curve
is described by the following dependence:
S = Ae n, (1)
where A is the constant of the material and n is the strain
hardening index.
For ferrite and steels with a ferrite matrix one frequently
uses a similar equation with the free term S0 equal to the
yield strength sy :
S = S0 + Ce n, (2)
where C is the constant of the material and n is the strain
hardening index. This equation describes the most accurately

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S (e), dS/de, ÌÏà
3500
3000
2500
2000
dS/de
1500 dS/de = S (e)
1000
S (e)
TRIP
500 steel Fig. 1. Strain hardening rate and
IF steel
curves in tension of low-alloyed
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 steel with the TRIP effect and
e high-strength IF steel.
the course of hardening starting with low plastic deforma-
tions.
It is known [1 – 4] that significant ductility (uniform de-
formation) is observed in materials with low yield strength
sy , or more precisely, with a significant difference sr – sy
and a large ratio sr /sy under a low deformation rate. All
hardening factors facilitating the increase in the yield
strength under a weak increase in the temporary rupture re-
sistance sr inevitably produce a loss of ductility.
Equation (1) is most frequently used to analyze the abi-
lity of metal for uniform deformation in view of the approxi-
mate equality of eu and n at a moment close to the beginning
of strain localization in the neck [4]. Consequently, substan-
tial uniform elongation of a material requires high values of
the parameter n. An increase in this parameter leads to a de-
crease in the hardening coefficient q at low degrees of defor-
mation and the growth of this coefficient under significant
deformations. The more correct formulation is the need to at-
tain a high index n under substantial deformation, which is
related to perceptible variations of the index n in various ma-
terials in the course of plastic flow [1]. This is typical, for in-
stance, of steel (Fig. 1) with the structure of low-carbon
martensite or bainite after different tempering, as well as
promising sheet steel for automobile building: low-alloy
steel with the TRIP effect, high-strength IF (free from inter-
stitial atoms), two-phase ferrite-martensite, and some others,
for which a uniform elongation is one of the main character-
istics of ductility [5 – 7].
The parabolic curve of polycrystal hardening of poly-
crystals corresponds to stage III of strain hardening of mono-
crystals [8]. The decrease in the hardening coefficient q with
an increasing degree of deformation can be interpreted in the
context of stress relaxation (si ) and diffusion-shear pro-
cesses controlling the plastic flow at this stage, and makes it
possible to analyze factors responsible for the plasticity of
polycrystals [9].
The rate of plasticity decrease under deformation is de-
termined by the rate of accumulation of crystal structure de-
fects in metals, i.e., by the scale of the relaxation processes.
I. Yu. Pyshmintsev et al.
To attain a perceptible uniform elongation du , one needs a
slow accumulation of elastic stresses in metal in the course
of plastic flow due to their effective relaxation, which en-
sures attaining sr (formation of a neck) and then fracture
only after a significant relative deformation. This suggests
that ductility is the indicator of the scale of relaxation pro-
cesses, which occur in strained metal according to different
mechanisms [10].
The removal of stresses under a plastic flow of metal is
primarily determined by the mobility (maneuverability) of
dislocations (the facility of lateral sliding and creeping over)
and the strength of dislocation nodes [8, 11] and is described
by a combined effect of numerous factors, which can be clas-
sified into three groups: physical, structural-phase, and tech-
nological.
The physical group includes the atom interaction force
(Peierls – Nabarro force), packing defect energy, the type of
crystal lattice, and effects related to the formation of solid so-
lutions.
Ductility of metals with a body-centered cubic (bcc) lat-
tice is related to multiple sliding along 24 nearly equivalent
systems, the high energy of packing defects, and the low
strength of dislocation nodes. All this contributes to annihila-
tion of dislocations and formation of dislocation cell walls
with partly compensated elastic stress fields, while the de-
gree and temperature of deformation remain relatively low
[8, 11].
The effect of atoms forming interstitial solutions (C, N,
H) is significantly higher than that of substitution atoms.
This is due to an asymmetric distortion of the lattice by inter-
stitial atoms and the formation of aggregates (atmospheres)
on dislocations, which significantly decreases their mobi-
lity [11].
Even for low-carbon steel with a ferrite matrix, few
quantitative relations are known that correlate the steel com-
position with hardening parameters. Thus, for relatively low
deformation (e = 0.2) the following relationships are pro-
posed [1]:
q = 15.4{24 + 7.8[C] +1.5[Mn] +
7.5[Si] + 36[P] + 98[Nf ] + 1.0d f- 1/ 2 }, (3)
du = 0.28 – 0.2[C] – 0.25[Mn] –
0.044[Si] – 0.039[Sn] – 1.2[Nf ], (4)
where q is the hardening coefficient, in MPa; du is the uni-
form relative elongation in %; Nf is non-fixed nitrogen; df is
the ferrite grain size; the symbols of chemical elements in
square brackets indicate their content in wt.%.
The structural-phase group includes the dislocation
density and distribution type, concentration of vacancies
(equilibrium and excess), the size of grains and subgrains
(the extent of different kinds of boundaries), the quantity and
morphology of the second phase particles, as well as pearlite,
ferrite, bainite, martensite, and residual austenite.