Materials Letters 233 (2018) 314–317

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Materials Letters
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mlblue

Effects of boron on mechanical properties of a hot-rolled 13% Mn

metastable austenitic steel
Cheng Li a,b, Feng Li a,b, Juhua Liang a,b, Ronghua Cao a,b, Zhengzhi Zhao a,b,⇑
a
Collaborative Innovation Center of Steel Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
b
Beijing Laboratory for Modern Transportation Advanced Metal Materials and Processing Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The effects of B on microstructure, tensile properties, fracture behavior and phase transformation in 13%
Received 26 July 2018 Mn metastable austenitic steels were systemically investigated. B addition increased the yield strength
Received in revised form 21 August 2018 for the existence of hard borides, but reduced the total elongation because of different fracture mecha-
Accepted 6 September 2018
nisms caused by the brittle borides. Microstructural analysis indicated that the excellent mechanical
Available online 7 September 2018
properties were the results of the combination of transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) and twinning
induced plasticity (TWIP) effects. Meanwhile, the highly concentrated stress at the ends of cracked bor-
Keywords:
ides induced the transformation from austenite to martensite and a large amount of austenite were con-
Austenitic steels
Borides
sumed by this way, which led to the earlier occurrence of fracture.
Microstructure Ó 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Deformation and fracture
Phase transformation

1. Introduction of austenite by TiC precipitation. Besides these, Branagan et al. [7]

Transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) and twinning induced
plasticity (TWIP) steels have a great combination of high tensile
strength and extraordinary ductility, making them very attractive
for the automobile industry. The transformation from austenite
to martensite in TRIP steels not only improves the strength but also
reduces stress concentration in crack front to get a better ductility
[1]. The excellent tensile properties of TWIP steels stem from a
high strain-hardening rate associated with dynamic strain aging
(DSA) and mechanical twins, which are strong barriers to disloca-
tion movement [2]. Bouaziz et al. [3] summarized the tensile prop-
erties of typical TWIP steels with the yield strength (YS) of 300–
450 MPa, ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 1200–1800 MPa and
total elongation (TE) of 40%–50%, respectively.
Commonly, in order to enhance the mechanical properties of
TRIP/TWIP steels, micro-alloying elements like Nb, V and Ti were
used. Lee et al. [4] reported that VC precipitates increased the yield
strength of TRIP steel by hindering the dislocation movement. The
addition of Mo and Nb in TRIP steel was reported to improve the
yield strength and ductility of the steel by increasing the volume
fraction and mechanical stability of retained austenite [5]. Han
et al. [6] reported that Ti was added to suppress the grain growth
⇑ Corresponding author at: Collaborative Innovation Center of Steel Technology,
University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China.
E-mail address: ustbzzz@126.com (Z. Zhao).
mentioned that borides could also make contribution to the
mechanical properties, which is an area few researches have been
done. In the present study, different contents of B were added into
a TRIP + TWIP steel to systematically investigate the effects of B
addition on mechanical properties.
2. Experimental
Three ingots of experimental steels with different B contents
were made using a vacuum induction furnace and the chemical
compositions are listed in Table 1. The ingots were forged and
machined to 150  60  40 mm and homogenized at 1050 °C for
1 h before hot rolled to the thickness of 2 mm with heat preserva-
tion at 1050 °C for 3 min between each pass, followed by water
quenched to room temperature.
Tensile specimens with a gauge length of 50 mm were
machined from the hot-rolled plates with tensile axis parallel to
the rolling direction. Tensile tests were carried out at room tem-
perature using a universal testing machine (SANSCMT5605) at a
constant crosshead speed of 2 mm/min. The microstructures of
all specimens were observed using optical microscopy (OM; Olym-
pus, OLS4100) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM; Quanta
FEG 450). The phase volume fractions of samples with different
deformation levels were acquired by analyzing their X-ray diffrac-
tion spectrums (XRD; D8 Advance X-ray Diffractometer) with DIF-
FRAC TOPAS 4.2 software. Ion milling technique was implemented

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2018.09.027
0167-577X/Ó 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 C. Li et al. / Materials Letters 233 (2018) 314–317
Table 1
Chemical compositions of the experimental steels (in wt%).
Steel C Mn B Cr
0.30B 0.12 12.8 0.28 1.98
0.15B 0.12 12.9 0.15 1.94
0B 0.12 13.0 <0.01 2.00
to prepare thin foil samples for the transmission electron micro-
scopy observation (TEM; JEM 2100).
3. Results and discussions
Fig. 1a shows typical engineering stress-strain curves of three
experimental steels. Steels with different B contents have the same
ultimate tensile strength level but with increasing B content, the
yield strength obviously rises. At the same time, the total elonga-
tion reduces by increasing B addition. The mechanical properties
of the experimental steels are shown in the table of Fig. 1a.
After smooth treatment using the Origin software, the corre-
sponding strain hardening rate curves of Fig. 1a are presented in
Fig. 1b. The specimens show a three-stage strain hardening behav-
ior, firstly show a trend of decline (Stage 1, e = 0–0.11), then
increase to a peak with fluctuations (Stage 2, e = 0.11–0.23) and
finally decrease (Stage 3, e = 0.23 to fracture). The curves indicate
that B addition have little influence on strain hardening rate in
the experimental steels.
Fig. 2a-c show microstructures of 0.30B, 0.15B and 0B steels.
Borides (M2B, M for Fe, Mn, Cr) with different sizes were observed
in the 0.30B and 0.15B steels, and the borides in 0.30B steel are
more and longer than those in 0.15B steel, which is confirmed by
the statistic results of borides in 0.30B and 0.15B steels (the mean
density of borides in 0.30B steel is 3998/mm2 and the mean major
axis length is 5.62 lm, however, they are 2191/mm2 and 4.84 lm
in 0.15B steel, respectively). Fig. 2d shows OM image of longitudi-
nal section along the rolling direction in 0.30B steel after fracture.
Almost all borides in matrix cracked and produced voids after
deformation. The positions marked with red arrows are remained
borides along the edge, revealing that during fracture process,
some voids in cracked borides connected together and the matrix
between the voids was torn to form the fracture section. Fractures
Fig. 1. (a) Typical engineering stress-strain curves and (b) strain hardening rate-true strain curves of three experimental steels.
315
Ni Si Cu Fe
1.19 2.43 1.82 Bal.
1.21 2.47 1.80 Bal.
1.20 2.50 1.84 Bal.
shown in Fig. 2e and f also confirm this fracture mechanism. Nearly
all voids in Fig. 2e and f contain cracked borides and between voids
there are areas with many small dimples caused by tearing. The
number of voids is the largest in 0.30B steel, revealing that the
numerous breakable borides deteriorate the total elongation. This
could explain why the 0.30B steel owns the minimum total elonga-
tion. As for 0B steel, with no boride, the evenly distributed dimples
in Fig. 2g indicate the mechanism of ductile fracture.
The relationships between phase contents and true strain are
shown in Fig. 3. The fraction of austenite declines, which reveals
austenite transformed to martensite, that is to say, the TRIP effect
occurred during the whole tensile process. Numerous twins were
found in all three investigated steels as shown in Fig. 4a when
the true train is about 0.11–0.23, indicating that TWIP effect
existed in Stage 2 and this phenomenon also can explain the
increasing strain hardening rate in this stage. In conclusion, defor-
mation mechanisms are familiar in the investigated steels and the
strain hardening rate of Stage 1 is the result of competition
between austenite deformation and TRIP effect, that of Stage 2 is
the co-work results of multiple phases, TRIP and TWIP effects
and Stage 3 is related to multiple phases, TRIP effect and micro
voids.
In 0.30B and 0.15B steels, there is something special with bor-
ides. On the one hand, dislocation accumulation was observed at
the ends of borides (Fig. 4d), which demonstrates that dislocation
movements were hindered by borides when the local stress was
relatively low. So in initial deformation stage, the large amounts
of dislocations were hindered by borides, which resulted in the
highest yield strength of 0.30B steel. On the other hand, Fig. 4e
shows a zone full of ultra-fine grains (recognized as e and a’-
martensite by polycrystalline diffraction pattern in Fig. 4f) at ends
of some cracked borides due to the highly concentrated stress,
indicating that during deformation, the stress concentration at
the ends of borides induced transformation from austenite to e
316 C. Li et al. / Materials Letters 233 (2018) 314–317

Fig. 2. OM images of microstructures in (a) 0.30B, (b) 0.15B, (c) 0B steels before deformation and (d) longitudinal section of 0.30B steel after fracture. SEM images of fractures
in (e) 0.30B, (f) 0.15B and (g) 0B steels. Red arrows indicate the cracked borides and yellow rectangular boxes indicate positions with many dimples. (For interpretation of the
references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 3. Relationships between the volume fraction of phases and true strain in (a) 0.30B, (b) 0.15B, (c) 0B steels.

and a’-martensite. With the increasing deformation level, the 4. Conclusions

cracking of borides and the formation of ultra-fine e and a’-
martensite grains at ends of cracked borides can be observed
throughout the whole tensile process. As a result, plenty of austen-
ite consumed by this way and finally resulted in the earlier occur-
rence of fracture for 0.30B and 0.15B steels.
The addition of B to 13% Mn TRIP + TWIP steels enhanced the
yield strength due to the formation of hard boride phase and their
hindrance to dislocation movement, but decreased the total elon-
gation for two reasons. One is that the brittle borides cracked easily
 C. Li et al. / Materials Letters 233 (2018) 314–317 317

Fig. 4. (a) Typical microstructure of twins in three investigated steels. (b) and (c) are corresponding selected area diffraction pattern and dark field image of (a). (d)
Microstructure around borides when the local stress was relatively low. (e) Microstructure at ends of cracked borides and (f) its corresponding selected area diffraction
pattern.

under stress and numerous voids were produced. The other reason
is that B addition had no influence on deformation mechanism of
the experimental steels, but martensite transformation occurred
at ends of cracked borides consumed a large number of austenite,
which finally contributed to the earlier occurrence of fracture for
B-contained steels.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China [grant number 51574028] and the National Key
Research and Development Program of Thirteenth Five-year Plan
Period [grant number 2017YFB0304400].
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