Scripta Materialia 48 (2003) 501–506

www.actamat-journals.com

Effect of austenite dispersion on phase transformation

in dual phase steel
Mehmet Erdogan *

Materials Division, Metallurgy Education Department, Faculty of Technical Education, Gazi University, Besevler, Ankara 06500, Turkey
Received 23 May 2002; received in revised form 26 September 2002; accepted 9 October 2002

Abstract
It was observed that ferrite carbide aggregate formation suppressed to cooling rates below 1 °C/s and a significant
amount of austenite transformed to martensite even at the cooling rate of 0.1 °C/s (furnace cooling). The critical cooling
rates for carbide formation is so low, compared with previous studies.
Ó 2002 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Dual phase steels; Phase transformation; Hardenability

1. Introduction following intercritical annealing is different from

The dual phase microstructure consists of a
dispersion of hard martensite particles in a soft,
ductile ferrite matrix. Dual phase steels are con-
ventionally produced by partial austenitisation of
low carbon steel within the ða þ cÞ phase field,
followed by accelerated cooling to transform the
austenite to martensite. In addition to martensite,
the resulting, microstructures may consist of epi-
taxial ferrite, pearlite, bainite or retained austenite
depending on cooling rates and intercritical an-
nealing temperatures used.
The effect of varying heat treatment temp-
erature, time, alloy content, and cooling rate on the
decomposition product has been studied by several
investigators [1–14]. The austenite transformation
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +90-3122130494; fax: +90-
3122120059.
E-mail address: merdogan@tef.gazi.edu.tr (M. Erdogan).
that after normal austenitisation in two respects.
Firstly in dual phase heat treatment austenite
volume fraction and its carbon content are deter-
mined by the intercritical annealing temperature.
Under paraequilibrium condition (short intercrit-
ical annealing time) carbon, but not substitu-
tional alloying elements segregates and determines
phase proportions and compositions. Secondly a
nucleation step is not required for new ferrite to
form during cooling, because the old ferrite pre-
sent during annealing can grow epitaxialy into the
austenite.
Lawson et al. [1] created microstructure maps
which illustrated the transformed products quan-
titatively as a function of cooling rate for a
paticular heat treatment temperature. They dem-
onstrated that the total volume fraction of trans-
formed phases was approximately constant for all
cooling rates. In addition to composition, inter-
critical annealing temperature and cooling rate
affect hardenability of dual phase steel. Priestner

1359-6462/03/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1 3 5 9 - 6 4 6 2 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 5 0 0 - 6
502 M. Erdogan / Scripta Materialia 48 (2003) 501–506

and Ajmal [15] proposed that microstructure 18% and 25% and two levels of microstructural
maps, may be interpreted to obtain austenite ! refinement.
martensite hardenability data specific to different Two different dispersions of martensite were
austenite contents. They plotted the percentage of produced by applying two different heat treat-
austenite which transformed to martensite as a ments to the homogenised rods prior to dual phase
function of cooling rate. heat treatment. In the one of these treatments, the
In the present work a steel containing 0.065 C homogenised rods were re-austenitised at 900 °C
wt.%, 1.58wt.% Mn and 0.5wt.% Ni with different for 20 min and cooled in forced air to produce a
austenite dispersion (fine and coarse) at the inter- microstructure of refined ferrite and pearlite and a
critical annealing temperature of 740, 750 and 785 small quantity of martensite. Dual phase micro-
°C was used to investigate transformation char- structures derived from this initial microstructure
acteristics of this steel and austenite dispersion were labeled series A. In the other heat treatments,
effect on its hardenability. the homogenised rods were re-austenitised at
900 °C for 20 min and water quenched to obtain
an initial microstructure of low carbon, lath mar-
tensite. Dual phase microstructures derived from
2. Experimental procedure this initial microstructure were labeled series B.
Based on the results of the preliminary investi-
The chemical composition of the steel employed gation, 2 mm thick discs of material that had been
was Fe–0.065C–0.39Si–1.58Mn–0.012P–0.004S– previously heat treated to produce the starting
0.03Cr–0.01Mo–0.55Ni–0.037Al–0.037B–0.006Co– microstructures A and B were intercritically an-
0.02Cu–0.026Nb–0.04Pb–0.006Sn–0.014Ti–0.03V nealed at 740, 750, 785 °C for 20 min. They were
(wt.%). It was supplied in the form of a hot rolled then cooled at a variety of rates. Thermocouples
plate 18 mm thick. Square bars were cut from the attached to the surface at the midpoint of speci-
plate, which were cold rolled to 14  14 mm, nor- men were used to measure cooling rates. The
malised at 900 °C for 20 min cooled in still air, and proportions of martensite and epitaxial ferrite
then swaged to 10.88 mm diameter. The swaged determined by point counting are listed in Table 1.
rods were vacuum sealed in quartz capsules, homo- Between 1000 and 2000 points were counted, to
genised at 1180 °C for 48 h, and furnace cooled to keep the standard error below 6% of the smallest
room temperature. This removed banding present phase volume fraction present in a sample. A
in the starting material. standard X-ray diffraction method [16] failed to
The preliminary investigation was to determine detect retained austenite in all but a small number
the dependence of martensite volume fraction on
intercritical annealing temperature. For this pur- Table 1
Cooling rates and phase proportions in specimens
pose 2 mm thick cylindrical slices from homo-
Specimen Cooling Martensite New ferrite
genised rods were annealed for 20 min in argon at
code rate (°C/s) content content
a series of temperatures from 709 to 868 °C and (vol%) (vol%)
quenched into a 10 wt.% brine solution held at
740A18 18 18.3 6.5
)8 °C. The martensite volume fraction was deter- 740B18 17 18.4 5.5
mined by point counting on metallographic sec- 750A18 10 18.1 9.5
tions etched in nital. As a result of this preliminary 750B18 6.4 18.1 8.5
study, three intercritical temperatures of 740, 750, 785A18 26.6 17.8 25.2
785B18 19.1 18 23.5
and 785 °C were selected for a detailed study of the
740A25 2100 25.8 1.3
effect of cooling rate on the development of the 740B25 2125 25.1 1.7
dual phase microstructure. These temperatures 750A25 385 25.2 4.4
were chosen in order to specify a series of heat 750B25 350 25.9 3.5
treatments that would vary the new ferrite content 785A25 153 25.2 16.4
785B25 112 25.4 15.3
at two levels of constant martensite content of
 M. Erdogan / Scripta Materialia 48 (2003) 501–506 503

of the specimens sampled, and retained austenite Figs. 2 and 3 in the form of microstructure maps.
was present only at the limit of the methodÕs sen- The volume fractions of martensite and epitaxial
sitivity, <3% by volume, in the exceptions. The ferrite are not independent variables, their sum
mean linear intercept grain size of the ferrite ma- being equal to the volume fraction of austenite
trix was estimated by superimposing circles on present at the intercritical temperature (although
micrographs at a magnification that allowed at
least 400 intercepts to be counted. The average
grain size in the A series of specimens was 10 lm,
and that in the B series was 6 lm.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Microstructures

On heating starting microstructure A to the in-

tercritical annealing temperature, austenite nucle- Fig. 2. Quantitative microstructure maps showing effect of
ated at, and grew to consume, the pearlite and cooling rates on the microstructure of series B annealed at 740
martensite colonies and then grew into the ferrite. °C (Old ferrite: Ferrite present during intercritically annealing).
The size and distribution of the martensite ob-
tained on quenching then reflected the scale of the
initial microstructure (Fig. 1a).
During intercritical annealing of starting micro-
structure B austenite nucleated more copiously at
lath interfaces, lath colony boundaries and prior
austenite grain boundaries. The martensite vol-
umes obtained on quenching were then smaller
and more finely dispersed (Fig. 1b).

3.2. Quantitative microstructure maps

Fig. 3. Quantitative microstructure maps showing effect of
cooling rates on the microstructure of series A annealed at
Examples of the result of quantitative metallo- 785 °C (Old ferrite: Ferrite present during intercritically an-
graphic analysis of series A and B are shown in nealing).

Fig. 1. Martensite dispersion in a series A, intercritically annealed at 740 °C cooled at 2100 °C/s to give 25.8% martensite and 1.3% new
ferrite and b series B intercritically annealed at 740 °C cooled at 2125 °C/s to give 25.1% martensite and 1.7% new ferrite etched in 2% nital.
504 M. Erdogan / Scripta Materialia 48 (2003) 501–506

some austenite may be retained in some dual phase
steels). For the present steel, cooling rates in excess
of 1000 °C/s were required to convert all of the
austenite to martensite. Reducing the cooling rate
causes epitaxial ferrite to displace martensite. At
cooling rates slower than approximately 1 °C/s the
formation of new ferrite as fallowed by the for-
mation of small quantity of ferrite–carbide aggre-
gate (pearlite þ bainite) before the last austenite
transformed to martensite, carbide was also pre-
sent as individual particles rather than as recog-
nisable pearlite and bainite constituents.
Examples of microstructures are shown in Fig.
4. Rapid quenching from 750 °C converted most
of the austenite to martensite, the martensite vol-
ume fraction being close to 25% and the epitaxial
ferrite content being between 3.5% and 4.4%. Fig.
4a and b illustrates that the martensite in the series
B specimens was more finely dispersed than in the
series A specimens. Slower cooling from the same
temperature, Fig. 5a and b, resulted in more epit-
axial ferrite and 18% martensite. In Figs. 4a and b
and 5a and b the chromate etch invented by
Lawson et al. [4] was used to show the epitaxial
ferrite as the bright, white constituent in the micro-
graphs, 8.5% in Fig. 5a and 9.5% in Fig. 5b.
The suppression of ferrite–carbide aggregate
formation to cooling rates below 1 °C/s is an im-
portant feature of the transformation characteris-
tics in this steel. In dual phase steel production,

Fig. 4. Micrograph of series A (a) and series B (b) specimens. Series A specimen, intercritically annealed at 750 °C and cooled at
385 °C/s to give 25.2% martensite and 4.4% new ferrite and series B specimen, intercritically annealed at 750 °C and cooled at 350 °C/s
to give 25.8% martensite and 3.5% new ferrite. New ferrite revealed as bright white areas after etching in hot chromate reagent.

Fig. 5. Micrograph of series A (a) and series B (b) specimens. Series A specimen, intercritically annealed at 750 °C and cooled at 10 °C/s
to give 18.1% martensite and 9.5% new ferrite and series B specimen, intercritically annealed at 750 °C and cooled at 6.4 °C/s to give
18.1% martensite and 8.5% new ferrite. New ferrite revealed as bright white areas after etching in hot chromate reagent.
 M. Erdogan / Scripta Materialia 48 (2003) 501–506
low quenching power is desirable, provided a
useful quantity of martensite is obtained and
pearlite and bainite are absent.
The critical cooling rate for carbide formation is
so low, compared with previous studies [1–10], is
probably due to the combination of low carbon
content and the presence of Ni.
Figs. 2 and 3 also show that a significant amount
of austenite transformed to martensite even at the
cooling rate of 0.1 °C/s (furnace cooling). These
figures also show that increasing the intercritical
annealing temperature increases the austenite vol-
ume fraction, but also decreases its carbon content
and so reduces its hardenability [15].
3.3. Effect of austenite dispersion on its hardenabil-
ity
The microstructure maps shown in Figs. 2 and
3 were interpreted in the form of austenite !
martensite hardenability diagrams, as in Fig. 6. In
the present experiments the finer starting micro-
structure, series B, produced more martensite than
the coarser series A, after intercritical heat treat-
ments at the lower temperatures, and particular at
the slower cooling rates. After intercritical heat
treatment at the highest temperature the harde-
nability of austenite from both series was nearly
identical. These results may be caused from car-
bon-enrichment effect of small austenite particles.
Since ferrite growth rate is a complex function of
the degree of under cooling, carbon diffusion rate
and carbon concentration in the austenite at the
a=c interface. Small austenite particles must be-
come enriched in carbon more rapidly than large
Fig. 6. Martensite hardenability of various austenite of series A
and B.
505
particles, with respect to amount of ferrite growth.
This suggests that for a given cooling rate the
average ferrite growth rate will be considerably
slower for fine dispersions than coarse ones. There-
fore, less ferrite and more martensite will form and
this difference will increase with increasing auste-
nite dipsersion.
In the present work, the concentration of aust-
enite stabilising elements (1.58% Mn and 0.5% Ni)
is higher than previous works and therefore would
shift to longer transformation times (i.e critical
cooling rate is decreased). In fully austenitised
steel, the critical cooling rate to produce 100%
martensite is increased by reducing the carbon
content and decreased by increasing substitutional
alloy content. In the present steel, this critical
cooling rate after intercritical heat treatment is
approximately 1000 °C/s, which is similar to that
for higher carbon, lower alloyed steel investigated
previously. However, a substantially larger frac-
tion of martensite is retained to much lower cool-
ing rates in the present steel. This suggests that the
alloying elements have a large effect in reducing
new ferrite growth rate, despite the lower carbon
concentration. However, it will be noted that the
new ferrite growth must be very sensitive to carbon
concentration in the austenite; much more new
ferrite formed in austenite obtained at 785 °C than
in that obtained at 740 and 750 °C. It is the sen-
sitivity of new ferrite growth rate to increasing
carbon concentration in austenite as the austenite
shrinks during cooling.
In the present work the retained austenite was
found to be barely detectable in some samples
cooled slowly. Fig. 7 show micrographs of some
samples cooled slowly. Tiny particles can be seen
located within ferrite grains (a) and at ferrite grain
boundaries (b). They are most probably retained
austenite.
A number of workers [9,17–22] have reported
retained austenite in dual phase steels, either as
interlath austenite in martensite, or as individual,
isolated particles. Austenite particles were very
small in size and appeared at ferrite boundaries as
well as within ferrite grains. The austenite retained
inside ferrite grains were thought by Rigsbee and
Vander Arend [9] to be stabilised by their ex-
tremely small size. In contrast, Bangaru et al. [19]
506 M. Erdogan / Scripta Materialia 48 (2003) 501–506
Fig. 7. Micrograph of series 740A (a) and 785A (b) specimens. Specimen 740A, intercritically annealed at 785 °C and cooled at
4.39 °C/s. Specimen 785A, intercritically annealed at 785 °C and cooled at 4.5 °C/s. New ferrite revealed as bright white areas after
etching in hot chromate reagent. ca indicates retained austenite.
attributed the stabilisation to carbon and nitrogen
partitioning to the austenite during cooling.
Hughes [22] predicted the existence of retained
austenite by showing that ferrite growth into an
initially small austenite volume depressed the Ms
temperature so severely that the austenite particles
could never transform to martensite.
4. Conclusions
1. The critical cooling rate for carbide formation
is low compared with previous studies. This is
probably due to the combination of low carbon
content and the presence of Ni.
2. The fine dual phase structure produced more
martensite than the coarse microstructure after
annealing at low temperature and particular at
the slower cooling rates. The reason for this
was considered to result from higher carbon en-
richment effect in fine structure than the coarse
ones during cooling.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Dr. R. Priestner for his
invaluable discussion.
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