Investigation of Hot Deformation Behavior and Microstructure Evolution of Lightweight Fe-35Mn-10Al-1C Steel

The deformation behavior of lightweight Fe-35Mn-10Al-1C steel with an elevated concentration of Mn was investigated. Hot compression tests at temperatures of 950–1150 °C and strain rates of 0.1–10 s−1 were carried out using the thermomechanical simulator, Gleeble 3800. Strain compensated constitutive model of hot deformation behavior with high accuracy (error was 4.6%) has shown significant increases in the effective activation energy (410–460 kJ/mol) in comparison with low Mn steels. The significant influence of the strain rate and temperature on the grain size was shown. The grain size decreases from the initial value of 42 ± 6 μm to the value of 3.5 ± 0.7 μm after the deformation at 1050 °C and 10 s−1. The model of the microstructure evolution of the investigated steel was constructed. The average error of the constructed model was 8.5%. The high accuracy of the constructed models allows for their application for the optimization of the hot deformation technologies using finite element simulation.