Materials Science & Engineering A 743 (2019) 425–435

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Materials Science & Engineering A

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/msea

Torsion performance of pearlitic steel wires: Effects of morphology and T

crystallinity of cementite
⁎
Lichu Zhoua, Feng Fanga, , Liping Wanga, Xianjun Hub, Zonghan Xiec,d, Jianqing Jianga
a
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China
b
Jiangsu Sha-Steel Group, Zhangjiagang 215625, China
c
School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia
d
School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, WA 6027, Australia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The torsion behavior of pearlitic steel wires is investigated and the conditions responsible for torsion delami-
Pearlitic steel wires nation are determined. Experimental results reveal that the morphology and crystallinity of cementite regulate
Cold drawing the torsion response of pearlitic steel wires. Specifically, both the torsion strength and torsion fracture strain of
Cementite the wires increase with cold drawing strain up to ε < 0.68. After annealing treatment at 250 °C, the torsion
Torsion delamination
strength increases at the expense of torsion fracture strain irrespective of drawing strains. Moreover, the torsion
Annealing
delamination occurs in the wires prepared at ε > 1.76 and also subjected to annealing treatment between
150 °C and 350 °C. It was found that annealing treatment turns the amorphous cementite to nanocrystalline state,
which prevents dislocations from bowing out. Consequently, localized and severe plastic deformation takes
place, resulting in the torsion delamination. By contrast, the cementite with a mix of amorphous and nano-
crystalline phases is capable of withstanding plastic deformation during torsion tests. Moreover, annealing-
induced spheroidization of cementite is effective in preventing the pearlitic steel wires from torsion delamina-
tion.

1. Introduction torsion tolerance was independent of the tensile strength [30,31,36].

Pearlitic steel wires have been widely used in a wide range of en-
gineering applications such as suspension bridge cables, automotive
tyre cords and cutting wires [1–4]. They are produced by cold drawing
process, followed by post-drawing annealing treatment to obtain a good
combination of strength and toughness. Mechanical properties of
pearlitic steel wires are regulated by refined lamellar structure [5–9],
heavily deformed cementite [10–15], increased dislocation density in
ferrite [16–18] and residual stress [19,20].
High tensile strength enables pearlitic steel wires to withstand se-
vere tensile loading [1]. However, in practical applications, the wires
should maintain a certain level of shear resistance [5,7,17,21–23].
Torsion tests are thus used to assess the shear strength and shear frac-
ture strain of pearlitic steel wires [24–27]. The shear fracture strain of
the wires would decrease substantially under the influence of torsion
delamination. As such, the torsion delamination has attracted attention
for many years [28–36]. Initially, torsion delamination was considered
to originate from low-temperature annealing or localized work hard-
ening [29,33,35]. However, subsequent studies indicated that the
Recently, the residual stress release [37] and diffusion of carbon atoms
[15,31,34] have been taken into consideration. Notably, torsion dela-
mination could take place in pearlitic steel wires prepared under rela-
tively low drawing strains, i.e., without apparent cementite dissolution
[38,39]. Suzuki [19] also reported that the residual stress in pearlitic
steel wires was insensitive to low temperature annealing. Therefore, the
underlying mechanism that governs the torsion delamination of pear-
litic steel wires remains unclear.
Multiple studies have suggested that torsion delamination might be
induced by post-drawing annealing treatment [30,31,34,37]. Amor-
phous cementite developed in heavily drawn pearlitic steel wires can be
transformed into nano-crystallites during the annealing process
[30,40–42]. The occurrence of torsion delamination was observed to be
closely related with the presence of nanocrystalline cementite [30].
Cementite in the annealed wires was found to dissolve during torsion
tests, and severe local plastic deformation led to the torsion fracture
[28]. However, to date, the role of cementite substructure has received
little attention when analyzing the mechanical properties of the wires.
The general view is that the influence of cementite upon mechanical

⁎
Correspondence to: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Jiangning District, Nanjing 211189, China.
E-mail address: fangfeng@seu.edu.cn (F. Fang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2018.11.113
Received 6 September 2018; Received in revised form 20 November 2018; Accepted 22 November 2018
Available online 23 November 2018
0921-5093/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
L. Zhou et al.
Table 1
The chemical composition of steel rods used in this study (wt%).
Element C Si Mn Cr S+P Fe
wt% 0.84 0.3 0.20 0.18 < 0.015 Bal.
properties mainly stems from its distribution and morphology [43,44].
Besides, there is a lack of systematic studies to unlock the intrinsic re-
lationship between the microstructure and torsion performance of the
pearlitic steel wires. Unpredictable torsion delamination remains to be
a hidden danger to the mechanical performance and durability of
pearlitic steel wires in actual practice.
In present study, the torsion behavior of pearlitic steel wires pre-
pared at different drawing strains and also subjected to annealing
treatments were investigated. Effects of cementite's morphology and
crystallinity upon the torsion performance were examined. To ascertain
the origin of torsion delamination, key factors such as the direction and
distribution of pearlite lamellae, dislocation configuration and ce-
mentite substructure were analyzed. Moreover, the conditions that
govern the torsion delamination were discussed.
2. Materials and methods
Starting materials used in this study are steel rods with a diameter of
~ 5.6 mm. Their chemical composition is shown in Table 1. The steel
rods were re-heated in order to obtain fine pearlite microstructure with
uniform interlamellar spacing. The heat treatment process can be de-
scribed as: Firstly, the rods were heated to 920 °C and held for 15 min,
then quenched in liquid salt at 550 °C and kept for 3 min. Finally, the
Fig. 1. SEM micrographs of cold drawn pearlitic steel wires fabricated from different drawing strains. Drawing direction (D. D.) was marked in d) a) ε = 0, b)
ε = 0.68, c) ε = 1.39, d) ε = 2.06.
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Materials Science & Engineering A 743 (2019) 425–435
rods were cooled down rapidly to room temperature by water cooling.
After pickling and phosphating [45], the rods were cold drawn to
2.0 mm in diameter (ε = 2.06) by multi-pass drawing process. The
temperature during drawing was controlled and kept under 100 °C by
liquid cooling. The post-drawing annealing treatments of the wires
were carried out in oil (150 °C and 250 °C) and salt bath (350 °C, 450 °C
and 550 °C), respectively. The holding time was 60 min for all the an-
nealing treatments before the wires were cooled in air to room tem-
perature.
The length of the test wires was 50 times the diameter. Torsion
experiments were conducted using a torsional test machine (Type:
CTT500, Shenzhen Suns Technology Stock Co. Ltd, China). Both the
torsion stress and strain were recorded in real time. The rotational
speed during the tests was set to be 6°/s, which is equivalent to a torsion
strain rate of 6.7 × 10−2 s−1. Five samples were tested under each
condition to ensure the reliability and accuracy of test results.
For microstructural observation, after polishing along the long-
itudinal direction, the samples were etched by 4% nitric acid alcohol
solution. The samples were examined using FEI Sirion-400 scanning
electron microscope (SEM). The orientation distribution of pearlite la-
mellae was quantified by analyzing the lamellar direction using ten
SEM micrographs for each type of the wire. TEM samples were prepared
by GATAN 691 Precision Ion Polishing System (PIPS) after the samples
were mechanically thinned to a thickness less than 40 µm. The samples
were cooled by liquid nitrogen in PIPS to avoid undesirable tempera-
ture rise. At the final stage of TEM sample preparation the ion angle and
energy was set to 3° and 2 Kev respectively to minimize microstructure
damage. The microstructure details of the wires were examined by FEI
T20-G2 and JEOL 2100F transmission electron microscopes.
L. Zhou et al.
Fig. 2. SEM micrographs of the pearlitic steel wires prepared from ε = 2.06 and then subjected to annealing at different temperatures for 60 min: a) 150 °C, b) 350 °C,
c) 450 °C, d) 550 °C.
3. Results
3.1. Microstructure characteristics
Fig. 1 shows the microstructure obtained from the longitudinal
section of pearlitic steel wires fabricated with different drawing strains.
As shown in Fig. 1a, the pearlitic steel rods (i.e., prior to cold drawing)
exhibited a lamellar structure with random lamellar orientation. Pear-
lite colonies in the wires corresponding to ε = 0.68 were stretched and
aligned toward the drawing direction (Fig. 1b). The microstructure of
the wires prepared with ε = 1.39 is presented in Fig. 1c. The angle
between the majority of pearlite lamellae and the drawing direction is
smaller than 45°. After heavy drawing, the resultant microstructure
exhibited an axially-aligned lamellar structure. Almost all of pearlite
lamellae in the wires prepared from ε = 2.06 were parallel to the
drawing direction (Fig. 1d). Moreover, the interlamellar spacing in the
wires was further decreased.
Microstructures of pearlitic steel wires subjected to annealing
treatment are presented in Fig. 2. The pearlitic steel wires were pre-
pared from ε = 2.06 before the annealing. Lamellar structure in the
wires remains unchanged under annealing at 150 °C and 350 °C. As
presented in Fig. 2a and b, the two wires still comprise an axially
aligned lamellar structure. A small amount of disconnected cementite
plates are observed in the 350 °C-annealed wires. During annealing at
450 °C, the cementite plates turned into round particles or short rods
(Fig. 2c). As shown in Fig. 2d, during annealing treatment at 550 °C
cementite in the wires spheroidized into larger particles.
Fig. 3 shows the TEM micrographs of pearlitic steel wires fabricated
under ε = 2.06. Fig. 3a is the BF-TEM micrograph of the as-drawn
wires. The lamellar structure in the wires consisits of alternating ferrite
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Materials Science & Engineering A 743 (2019) 425–435
and cementite lamellae (the thinner ones). As presented in DF-TEM
(Fig. 3b), a small amount of particles with weak contrast can be ob-
served in the cementite plates. Fig. 3c is the BF-TEM micrograph of the
wires after annealing treatment at 250 °C for 60 min. The wires retain
its lamellar structure after the annealing treatment. As presented in the
DF-TEM micrograph(Fig. 3d), a large amount of fine particles appear in
the cementite plate. Fig. 3e is the high-resolution TEM (HRTEM) mi-
crograph of the as-drawn wires. Ferrite region is separated by 4–6 nm
wide cementite lamellae. The cememtite lamellae contain a mix of
amorphous and nanocrystalline phases with extremely small grain size.
It indicates that part of cementite was transformed into amorphous
structure under heavy cold drawing, which is in agreement with pre-
vious reports [3,11,12]. HRTEM micrograph of the pearlitic steel wires
after annealing treatment at 250 °C for 60 min is presented in Fig. 3f.
Clear lattice fringes of cementite can be observed between ferrite,
suggesting that the cementite lamellae transformed to primarily nano-
crystalline structure during the annealing treatment.
TEM micrograph of pearlitic steel wires (ε = 2.06) after annealing
treatment at 550 °C for 60 min is presented in Fig. 4. The annealing
treatment resulted in remarkable spheroidization of cementite. Mean-
while, heavily deformed ferrite lamellae recrystallized and coalesced
into coarser ferrite grains. Note that the crystal-orientation is random in
the TEM specimen, which shows that the recovery has occurred during
the annealing, and the dislocation density has decreased considerably
[16,41].
3.2. Torsion properties
The torsion properties of the pearlitic steel wires are shown in
Fig. 5. The torsion strength of both as-drawn wires and 250 °C-annealed
L. Zhou et al. Materials Science & Engineering A 743 (2019) 425–435

Fig. 3. TEM and HRTEM micrographs of pearlitic steel wires prepared with the drawing strain of ε = 2.06 a) Bright field (BF) TEM micrograph of as-drawn wires, b)
Dark field (DF) micrograph of a), c) BF-TEM micrograph of pearlitic steel wires after annealing treatment at 250 °C for 60 min, d) DF TEM micrograph of c), e)
HRTEM micrograph of as-drawn wires, f) HRTEM micrograph of pearlitic steel wires after annealing treatment at 250 °C for 60 min.

wires are plotted in Fig. 5a. As the drawing strain increases to 2.06, the
torsion strength of as-drawn wires increases from about 980–1780 MPa.
The torsion strength of the 250 °C-annealed wires, for the most part, is
slightly higher than that of as-drawn wires. For instance, the torsion
strength of annealed wires prepared from ε = 1.39 is about 100 MPa
higher than the as-drawn wires. However, the torsion strength of the
annealed wires prepared under ε = 1.76 and 2.06 have shown larger
variations, increasing from about 1500–1850 MPa. Fig. 5b shows the
torsion fracture strain of both as-drawn wires and 250 °C-annealed
wires. The torsion fracture strain of the as-drawn wires firstly increases

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L. Zhou et al.
Fig. 4. TEM micrograph of pearlitic steel wires fabricated under ε = 2.06 and
then subjected to annealing treatment at 550 °C for 60 min.
from 0.85 (ε = 0) to 1.6 (ε = 0.68), indicating that smaller drawing
strains can simultaneously improve the torsion strength and torsion
fracture strain of the pearlitic steel wires. With a further increase of cold
drawing strain, however, the torsion fracture strain gradually decreased
from about 1.6 (ε = 0.68) to 1.1 (ε = 2.06). For annealed wires, the
evolution of torsion fracture strain with drawing strain was basically
consistent with the as-drawn wires. The torsion fracture strains of an-
nealed wires prepared from ε = 1.76 and 2.06 exhibited a greater
variation in value from about 0.4–1.0. The large variations or un-
expected torsion fracture strains have been reported to be associated
with the torsion delamination [28,31,33,35].
Fig. 6 shows the changes of both torsion strength and torsion frac-
ture strain of pearlitic steel wires (ε = 2.06) in response to annealing
treatment. When the annealing temperatures are 150 °C, 250 °C and
350 °C, both the torsion strength and torsion fracture strain of the wires
exhibit large variations, for example, from 1550 MPa (ε = 0.25) to
1900 MPa to (ε = 0.9). As the annealing temperature increases to
450 °C, the torsion properties of the pearlitic steel wires become more
stable. Compared to the as-drawn wires, the torsion fracture strain of
450 °C-annealed wires decreases slightly, i.e., from 1.05 to about 0.95,
and the torsion strength decreases to about 1550 MPa. When the an-
nealing temperature further increases to 550 °C, the torsion failure
strain increases at the expense of the torsion strength.
To further revealing the difference in torsion performance between
the as-drawn wires and the wires subjected to the annealing treatment,
Fig. 5. Torsion properties of pearlitic steel wires a) The torsion strength and b) the torsion fracture strain of the wires as a function of drawing strains.
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Fig. 6. Torsion properties of pearlitic steel wires (ε = 2.06) subjected to an-
nealing treatment at different temperatures.
the torsion stress-strain curves and torsion fracture surfaces of the wires
are presented in Fig. 7. The torsion stress-strain curves of the pearlitic
steel wires (ε = 0.68) are presented in Fig. 7a. As the torsion strain γ
increases to about 0.02, the torsion stress of the two wires increases
quickly to the yield point. The small difference in torsion performance
between the two wires can be seen after the yield point is reached. The
250 °C-annealed wires experiences a slightly higher torsion stress than
that of the as-drawn wires up to the torsion fracture. Fig. 7b shows the
torsion stress-strain curves of the pearlitic steel wires made from
ε = 2.06. It can be seen that as with the as-drawn wires the torsion
stress of the 250 °C-annealed wires increases quickly at the initial stage.
This is followed by a rapid decline in torsion stress at strain γ ≈ 0.025.
The torsion stress fluctuates with a further increase in torsion strain γ.
The initial decline and subsequent fluctuation of the torsion stress has
been reported to be caused by crack initiation and propagation
[28,30,31,33,35]. Finally, the delamination fracture occurred in the
wires. The torsion stress-strain curve for the ε = 2.06 wires subjected
annealing treatment at 450 °C is presented in Fig. 7b. The curve is
smooth up to the fracture occurring at torsion strain γ ≈ 0.95.
Fig. 7c shows the torsion fracture of as-drawn pearlitic steel wires
(ε = 2.06), without delamination. A smooth fracture surface appears,
and there are no other cracks around the torsion fracture. The torsion
fracture of 250 °C annealed pearlitic steel wires (ε = 2.06) consists of
multiple cracks (Fig. 7d), indicative of a delamination type. The
dominant crack cut through the surface of the fractured pearlitic steel
wire with smaller cracks kept inside the wire. Previous studies
[28,30,31,37] have found the sharp drop in torsional stress resulted
from the formation of tiny cracks in the wires. Therefore, a sudden drop
in the torsion stress-strain curve presented in this study (Fig. 7b)
L. Zhou et al.
Fig. 7. Torsion strain-stress curves and torsion fracture observation of pearlitic steel wires a) Torsion strain-stress curve of pearlitic steel wires (ε = 0.68); b) Torsion
strain-stress curve of pearlitic steel wires (ε = 2.06); c) Torsion fracture of as-drawn pearlitic steel wires (ε = 2.06); d) Torsion fracture of 250 °C-annealed pearlitic
steel wires (ε = 2.06).
suggests the development of tiny cracks in the wires at small torsion
stains. These cracks propagated during the torsion tests, and eventually
led to the torsion delamination fracture.
3.3. Microstructure deformation
The torsion-induced microstructure change in as-drawn (ε = 0.68)
pearlitic steel wires is presented in Fig. 8. The wires retain its lamellar
structure after torsion fracture, however, the pearlite lamellae are
found to deviate from the drawing direction (Fig. 8a). It indicates that
the pearlite lamellae have twisted during the torsion test. Fig. 8b shows
that high density of dislocation bundles have formed, which are dis-
persed in ferrite lamellae separated by cementite plates.
The torsion-induced microstructure deformation of as-drawn pear-
litic steel wires (ε = 2.06) is presented in Fig. 9a. The direction of
pearlitic lamellae departs from the drawing direction; however, no
apparent fracture or fragmentation of cementite can be observed in the
wires after torsion fracture. Fig. 9b shows that a high density of
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dislocations has developed uniformly in ferrite lamellae. The cementite
plates, which comprises a mix of amorphous and nanocrystalline phases
(Fig. 3), appear not to be affected by the torsion.
The orientation and its distribution of both the as-drawn wires and
those experiencing torsion fracture are presented in Fig. 10 as a func-
tion of cold drawing strains. With increasing drawing strain ε, the
pearlitic lamellae are aligned within 15° around the drawing direction.
The orientation distribution indicates that the pearlitic lamellae have
turned away from the drawing direction (D. D.) after torsion. It is in-
teresting to note that the orientation of lamellae in the as-drawn wires
(ε = 0.68) exhibits a similar distribution to that of the torsion fractured
wires as presented in Fig. 10c.
Fig. 11 is SEM and TEM micrographs of the pearlitic steel wires
(ε = 2.06) after torsion tests. Note that the wires have been annealed at
250 °C for 60 min before the torsion test, which shows that the fracture
strain γ of the wires is 0.45. However, as a result of inhomogeneous
plastic deformation during the delamination torsion [28,37], the true
torsion strain γ of the tested samples may not be 0.45. As shown in the
L. Zhou et al.
Fig. 8. Microstructure of as-drawn pearlitic steel wires (ε = 0.68) after torsion test. a) SEM micrograph, b) TEM micrograph.
SEM micrograph (Fig. 11a), some distorted regions comprise cementite
fragments dispersed among lamellar microstructure. It indicates that
local cementite plates have been broken into small particles by torsion
deformation. As seen in Fig. 11b ferrite lamellae show different contrast
between each other. Selected area electron diffraction (SAED) of
marked region “1” to “4” is presented in Fig. 11c. These four regions are
close to each other within the range of 300 nm, the corresponding SAED
patterns, however, are different to each other. Fig. 11d presents the DF-
TEM micrograph of the same area of Fig. 11b by selecting the diffrac-
tion spot marked in Fig. 11c. A small region with high-density dis-
locations can be observed. These dislocations appear to be blocked by
cementite plates. Previous studies have reported that the mis-orienta-
tion of adjacent ferrite lamellae is quite small [17]. Thus, the present
finding suggests that inhomogeneous and local severe deformation of
ferrite lamellae occurred during the torsion of the 250 °C annealed
wires. As a result, the orientations of ferrite lamellae is alerted. Notably,
the cementite plates in the 200 °C annealed wires are reported to be
dissolved by torsion test [28]. In present study, however, the cementite
plates can be readily identified in the DF-TEM micrograph (Fig. 11d).
Moreover, here the cementite plates are bent or become fragmented.
Such bending and fragmentation of cementite plates is believed to
partly result from stress concentration caused by high density disloca-
tions in ferrite.
Fig. 9. Microstructure of as-drawn pearlite steel wires (ε = 2.06) after torsion test: a) SEM micrograph, b) TEM micrograph.
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Fig. 12a is the SEM micrograph of the pearlitic steel wires (ε = 2.06)
obtained after the torsion tests. Note that the pearlitic steel wires were
annealed at 550 °C for 60 min before the torsion tests. A large number of
randomly oriented cementite particles can be observed in the SEM
micrograph. Cementite particles are almost encircled by high density
dislocations in the wires as shown in TEM micrograph (Fig. 12b).
However, these cementite particles appear not to be influenced by the
torsion tests.
4. Discussion
4.1. The role of cementite in determining the torsional properties
Experiment results presented above suggest that there is a close link
between cementite and torsion properties of the pearlitic steel wires.
The morphology and substructure of cementite in pearlitic steel wires
are affected by drawing deformation and post-drawing annealing. The
influence of morphology and crystallinity of cementite upon the torsion
properties is discussed below.
4.1.1. Effect of cementite morphology
Since pearlitic steel wires have an axially-aligned lamellar structure,
the influence of cementite on the deformation behavior is supposedly
L. Zhou et al.
Fig. 10. Orientation and distribution of pearlite lamellae of as-drawn pearlitic steel wires and those experiencing torsion fracture: a) ε = 0, b) ε = 0.21, c) ε = 0.68,
d) ε = 1.39, e) ε = 1.76, f) ε = 2.06.
anisotropic [19,46]. Cementite plates are understood to act as barriers
that prevent dislocations from moving through ferrite [18,47]. The
deformation direction along cementite plates is called the ‘soft’ or-
ientation for plastic deformation [48]. By contrast, when the applied
stress is perpendicular to the cementite plates, the cementite plates
trends to fracture and the entanglement of high density dislocations
would develop in ferrite near the fractured cementite [46,48]. Fur-
thermore, micro-voids and micro-cracks are detected near the fractured
cementite; as a result, the ductility of the wires deteriorates [49].
In this study, both the torsion strength and torsion fracture strain of
the pearlitic steel wires are found to improve simultaneously with in-
creasing the drawing deformation up to ε < 0.68 (Fig. 5). The increase
of the torsion strength can be attributed to pearlite lamellae refinement
[50] and the increase of dislocation density [51]. During the torsion
tests, the shear stress is distributed along the circumferential direction.
The analysis of pearlitic lamellae orientation (Fig. 10) has indicated
that, during the torsion tests, the pearlite lamellae twisted to cater to
the torsion stress. It's interesting to note that the orientation distribu-
tion of pearlite lamellae in the ε = 0.68 wires remains unchanged after
the torsion tests (Fig. 10c). This indicates that the directionality of
pearlite lamellae caused by cold drawing deformation might contribute
to the increase of the torsion fracture strain at ε < 0.68.
After the annealing treatment at 450 °C or 550 °C, the cementite
plates in pearlitic steel wires have transformed into short rods or
spherical particles (Fig. 2a and Fig. 4). Under such situation, high
density dislocations in ferrite can bow out, as presented in Fig. 12b.
Thus, the torsion fracture strain of the pearlitic steel wires is improved
by the annealing treatment at 450 °C and 550 °C (Fig. 6).
4.1.2. Effect of cementite substructure
A key question remains; that is, why the torsion performance of
pearlitic steel wires is sensitive to annealing treatment at low tem-
perature, even though such treatment incurred almost no change in
microstructure. The influence of cementite upon the mechanical prop-
erties of steel is generally believed to be closely associated with the
morphology of cementite [42,52–54]. However, the cementite plates in
heavily drawn pearlitic steel wires have been refined to only a few
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Materials Science & Engineering A 743 (2019) 425–435
nanometers. There is also evidence that part of cementite is turned into
amorphous state in heavily drawn pearlitic steel wires
[3,11,12,22,40,55].
Nanoscale amorphous interlayer between Cu/Nb nano-grains has
been demonstrated to be capable of absorbing dislocations and dif-
fusing the strain concentration [56]. The failure strain of the Cu/Nb
alloy is thus increased by more than 10 times with the presence of such
amorphous interlayer. In this study, the cementite plates containing
amorphous phase are believed to have played an important role during
the torsion test. As presented in Fig. 9, the cementite plates consists of a
mix of amorphous and nanocrystalline phases are conducive to plastic
deformation during torsion. When subjected to a torsion strain of ~ 1,
the cementite plates did not fracture or bend. By contrast, cementite
plates consisting primarily of nanocrystalline phase, as seen for ex-
ample in the 250 °C-annealed pearlitic steel wires (ε = 2.06) (Fig. 11),
would block the dislocation motion during the torsion, causing the
breakage of cementite plates and local severe deformation. A stress
decline at a torsion strain of only 0.025 (Fig. 7) means that cracks has
been generated. Moreover, both the microstructure analysis and torsion
stress-strain curves suggest that the cementite plates behave like a hard
and brittle phase during the torsion. Consequently, the 250 °C annealed
pearlitic wires (ε = 2.06) exhibit delamination fracture during the
torsion test.
The torsion strength of the pearlitic steel wires also increases as a
result of low-temperature annealing. It has been reported that the dis-
locations are pinned by newly formed cementite crystals [40,57].
Therefore, the low-temperature annealing strengthening as seen in the
torsion tests is believed to relate with the newly formed cementite
nanocrystalline phase.
4.2. Torsion delamination of pearlitic steel wires
Torsion delamination is the direct manifestation of torsion-caused
deterioration in material. The pearlitic steel wires with torsion dela-
mination show a “random” or unpredictable nature in the torsion per-
formance and failure [28,37]. In particular, the cracks might form when
the delamination-prone pearlitic steel wire experience even very small
L. Zhou et al. Materials Science & Engineering A 743 (2019) 425–435

Fig. 11. Microstructure analysis of 250 °C-annealed pearlitic steel wires (ε = 2.06) after torsion tests a) SEM micrograph, b) Bright field (BF) TEM micrograph, c)
SADE of the distortion region marked in a), and d) Dark field (DF) micrograph of b).

Fig. 12. Microstructure analysis of 550 °C-annealed pearlitic steel wires (ε = 2.06) after the torsion tests: a) SEM micrograph, b) TEM micrograph.

torsion strain, which can influence the stress loading of the wires steel wires, especially in relation to safety-vital applications.
considerably (Fig. 7). Such easy crack generation and random fracture Many different or even contradictory standpoints have made it
nature have serious implications for the use of heavily drawn pearlitic difficult to understand the conditions responsible for the torsion

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L. Zhou et al.
Table 2
The influence of cementite upon the torsion performance of pearlitic steel wires.
Cementite microstructure Deformation behavior during torsion
Non-aligned Dislocations multiplied along the lamellar direction
Aligned lamellae (cold-drawing) Cementite containing amorphous phase favoring plastic deformation
Aligned lamellae (drawing + annealing) Dislocations impeded by cementite plates consisting of recrystallized particles
Spherical cementite (Spheriodization) Dislocations bowing out the cementite particles
delamination of pearlitic steel wires. Firstly, the dissolution of ce-
mentite is found to be insignificant in the pearlitic steel wires prepared
from a drawing strain ε < 20 [38,39]. Suzuki et al. have also reported
that the residual stress in the pearlitic steel wires were hardly affected
by low temperature annealing at 150 °C [19]. It suggests that the two
factors, the distribution of carbon and residual stress, might not be key
inducements for torsion delamination. Based on the experimental re-
sults and discussions above, the nature of cementite in the pearlitic steel
wires is believed to play an important role in the torsion performance.
The influence of cementite upon the torsion behavior can be summar-
ized as Table 2.
The cracks generated at small torsion strains are supposedly re-
sponsible for delamination fracture of the annealed pearlitic steel wires
[24,28,30,37]. Notably, however, both previous reports and the present
study have found that not all of annealed pearlitic steel wires exhibited
delamination fracture during the torsion tests. Firstly, the annealing
temperature is believed to be one of the key factors. As stated above,
the occurrence of cementite spheroidization is observed in the pearlitic
steel wires after annealing treatment at 450 °C and 550 °C. The torsion
ductility of pearlitic steel wires is improved as expected. Moreover, the
annealing treatments at low temperatures such as 140 °C [58] or 120 °C
[37] were unable to cause torsion delamination of the pearlitic steel
wires. Secondly, the drawing strain of the pearlitic steel wires is another
key factor. In the present study, only when the drawing strain ε of the
wires subjected to annealing treatment is greater than 1.76, the dela-
mination fracture would occur. Besides, the occurrence of torsion de-
lamination have not been reported in the wires fabricated from drawing
strain ε < 1.33 [25,30,31,37,59,60]. It might be due to the alignment
imperfection of pearlite lamellae in those wires, since the orientation
and its distribution of pearlitic lamellae would influence the torsion
performance. Finally, metallurgical defects (abnormal local micro-
structure, pro-eutectoid cementite or inclusions) and surface cracks
might also need to be considered [2]. These defects can increase the
possibility of delamination crack generation. For example, torsion de-
lamination has been reported in as-drawn wires or in the wires un-
dergoing spheroidization with short time [29,31,34,35,61]. The dela-
mination was possibly caused by the metallurgical or surface defects
which have served as crack precursors in the pearlitic steel wires.
5. Conclusions
The influence of both the drawing strain and post-drawing an-
nealing treatment on the torsion behavior of pearlitic steel wires is
investigated. The relationship between the torsion performance and the
microstructure (in particular cementite features) is examined. The
conditions responsible for the torsion delamination of pearlitic steel
wires are discussed. The conclusions can be drawn as follows:
1. Both the torsion strength and torsion fracture strain of pearlitic steel
wires are simultaneously improved by the cold drawing up to
ε < 0.65, that is, from 980 MPa to 1300 MPa and 0.95–1.65, re-
spectively. With the drawing strain ε further increasing to 2.06, the
torsion strength increases to 1780 MPa but the torsion fracture
strain decrease to 1.1. After annealing treatment at 250 °C, the
torsion strength of the wires increases at the expense of torsion
fracture strain. Moreover, torsion delamination occurs in the wires
434
Materials Science & Engineering A 743 (2019) 425–435
Torsion performance
Uniform torsion
Uniform torsion
Local severe deformation /Delamination
Uniform torsion
fabricated with drawing strain ε > 1.76.
2. During the torsion test, dislocation multiplication occurred in ferrite
along the lamellar direction in the wires with pearlite lamellae not
parallel to the drawing direction. In heavily drawn pearlitic steel
wires with aligned pearlite lamellae, cementite contains a mix of
amorphous and nanocrystalline phases and the dislocation motion
in ferrite was almost unhindered. By contrast, following the an-
nealing treatment, the cementite plates comprise primarily nano-
crystalline grains, which acted as barriers against dislocation motion
during the torsion test.
3. The spheroidization of cementite can prevent the pearlitic steel
wires from torsion delamination. The conditions for the torsion
delamination can thus be described as follows: a) the formation of
axially-aligned lamellar structure, and b) the transformation of ce-
mentite substructure from amorphous to nanocrystalline state,
without incurring spheroidization.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Science and Technology
Advancement Program of Jiangsu Province (grant no. BA2017112), the
Six Talent Peaks Project in Jiangsu Province (2015-XCL-004) and the
Industry-University Strategic Research Fund of Jiangsu Province
(BY2016076-08). The study was also partly supported by the
Fundamental Research Fund for the Central Universities and the
Scientific Research Foundation of the Graduate School of Southeast
University (YBJJ1674). Dr. Z. Xie acknowledges the support of the
Australian Research Council Discovery Projects. Authors also thank C.
W. Jin for assistance with TEM analysis.
Data availability statement
All data included in this study are available upon request by con-
tacting the corresponding author.
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