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JOURNAL OF IRON AND STEEL RESEARCH, INTERNATIONAL. 2006, 13(6) : 66-70

Microstructures and Mechanical Properties of

Fe-Mn-(A1 Si) TRIP/TWIP Steels
DING Hua ,

TANG Zheng-You

LI Wei ,

WANG Me?,

SONG Dan

(1. College of Materials and Metallurgy, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110004, Liaoning, China;
2. Continuous Casting Center, Central Iron and Steel Research Institute, Beijing 100081, China)
Abstract: The mechanical properties and microstructure of two low carbon high manganese steels with 23.8%
(No. 1) and 33% (No. 2) (mass percent) of manganese were investigated. The results showed that No. 1 steel possesses high strength and high plasticity, and No. 2 steel has a relatively high strength and extraordinary plasticity.
The NO. 1 steel exhibits both TRIP (transformation induced plasticity) and TWIP (twin induced plasticity) effects
during the deformation; while only TWIP effect appeared under the same deformation condition for No. 2 steel. The
comparison between the microstructures and mechanical properties of two steels was made, and the strengthening
mechanisms were also analyzed.
Key words: manganese; TRIP; TWIP; microstructure; mechanical property

Recently, low carbon high manganese austenitic

steels have aroused interests due to their extraordinary mechanical properties. These engineering highstrength steels are called TRIP (transformation induced plasticity) and TWIP (twin induced plasticity) steels, and they are mostly devoted to automotive bodies. Research work has been done in alloy
development, microstructure analysis and mechanical properties for these steels-31. Steel companies
are also trying to do some pioneer work in applications in auto-industries.
Grassel 0 et a1 have done systematic work in
high manganese TRIP/TWIP steels. They investigated the effects of alloying elernents on the mechanical properties of austenitic Fe-( 15% - 30%)
Mn (mass percent) steels with additions of aluminium and silicon, and also made some comparisons
between TRIP and TWIP steels. I t was stated that
the alloy would mainly reveal TRIP effect when
manganese content was lower than 2 0 % ; while
TWIP effect would be dominant when manganese
content is higher than 25%.
In theoretical aspects, there has been much
work concerning the formation of deformation
twins, and interaction between dislocations moveBiography: DING Hua(1958-1, Female, Doctor, Professor;

ments and twinning in high manganese steels.

Bouaziz 0 conducted modeling work on TWIP effect
to describe the interaction between dislocation gliding and deformation twinningC4. Allain S et a1 investigated the formation of microtwins and proposed
a physical model to highlight the link between the
mechanical properties and the microstructure properties (TWIP e f f e ~ t ) ~ Karaman
~~.
I et a1 studied
the deformation of single M n l 3 steel by twinning
and slip, and analyzed the effects of original orientation on the deformation processC7J.
Up till now, most work related high manganese
steels has been concentrated on the alloy, which either
has TRIP or TWIP effect. In the present work, an alloy
was designed with manganese content between 20% and
25% to see if both TRIP and TWLP effects could coexist, and another alloy with manganese content much
higher than 25% was chosen to make some comparisons
between the mechanical properties and deformed microstructures of different steels. Meanwhile, the strengthening mechanisms were also analyzed.

Experimental Procedure

T h e steels were smelt in a 50 kg vacuum induction furnace, and the chemical composition ( mass

E-mail: hdingB263. net;

Revised Date: June 2 , 2006

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Microstructures and Mechanical Properties of Fe-Mn-( Al, Si) TRIP/TWIP Steels

No. 6

percent, %) was shown in Table 1.

The ingots were first forged, and then hot
rolled to the plate with thickness of 1 6 mm. T h e
materials were heated up to 1 100 " C , kept at this
temperature for 1 h , then water quenched. T h e tensile testing was carried out in an Instron machine at
s-'.
room temperature and with a strain rate of
T h e gauge area of the tensile specimens is $5 mmX
25 mm. Microhardness of deformed specimens were
measured by FM-700 Vickers microhardness tester.
The microstructures before and after deformation
were observed at a Leicaq 550IW optical microscope
and Tecnai 20 (TEM). X-ray analysis was used to identify the phase structure of the materials.

Table 2

Mechanical properties of tested steels

Steel

R,L/MPa

No. 1

339

666

67

No. 2

223

540

97

R,/MPa

A/%

700

f:

5oo

-.- 300
P

c.
100

Table 1

Chemical compositions of tested steels

Steel

Mn

A1

Si

Fe

No. 1
No. 2

23. 8

2. 7
2. 93

3.0

6X10K4

Balance

3. 0

6X

33. 0

lo-'

Balance

20

40
60
Tensile strai~~%

80

100

Fig. 1 Engineering stress and strain curves

(room temperature,
s-' )

Results

2. 1 Mechanical properties
Table 2 shows the mechanical properties (room
s - ' ) of tested steels. It can be
temperature,
seen that No. 1 steel has a higher strength and No. 2
steel has a higher elongation at the same deformation
condition. The engineering stress and strain curves
of two steels are shown in Fig. 1.

2.2

Microstructural observation

Fig. 2 shows the microstructures of the as-received materials, which show that the initial microstructures contain some annealing twins. XRD indicated both steels contain only single austenite phase. The

(a) No. 1 steel;

Fig. 2

microstructures after deformation of the tested

steels were shown in Fig. 3 . In No. 1 steel, it is
found that there are some islands [ a s shown in arrow in Fig. 3 ( a ) ] , and testing result reveals that
their hardness is 280 HV, which is similar to the
matrix (265 HV). This result indicates that these
islands must be retained austenite remaining after
deformation. It is difficult to identify if phase transformation or twinning took place in No. 1 steel during deformation by optical microscope. For No. 2
steel, deformation twins are clearly seen in Fig. 3 (b).
Both bcc and fcc phase have been identified by
XRD in deformed No. 1 steel [shown in Fig. 4 (b)].
Since the initial state of t h e material w a s single y

( b ) No. 2 steel

Initial microstructures (OM)

Vol. 13

Journal of Iron and Steel Research, International

68 *

(a)

Fig. 3

NO. 1 steel;

( b ) No. 2 steel

Microstructures of deformed specimens (OM)

8 000

6 000

4000

b
.-

2000

0
40

60

80

(a)

Fig. 4

100

120

40

14
26/(")

Undeformed specimen;

60

80

100

120

140

( b ) Deformed specimen

XRD of undeformed and deformed specimens (No. 1 steel)

phase [shown in Fig. 4 (a)], the bcc phase could be

martensite transformed during the deformation
process. This is proven by T E M studies. Fig. 5 ( a >
shows the morphology of deformed specimen under
TEM, and some lath like grains can be found, as
shown in arrows. Fig. 5 ( b ) gives the diffraction
pattern of selected area, and the diffraction analysis
[Fig. 5 (c)] indicates that the microstructure of bcc
phase is martensite formed during deformation.
Fig. 6 (a> shows the morphology of twins in deformed specimen under T E M , and Fig. 6 ( b ) gives
the diffraction pattern of selected area. T h e diffraction analysis indicates that the twinning plane is
(111) and the twinning direction is [ 1131. Therefore, it can be concluded that both T R I P and T W I P
effects existed in the deformation of No. 1 steel. In
the XRD of deformed No. 2 steel, only fcc phase was
detected, so only TWIP effect existed during the deformation of later material.

Discussion

T h e experimental results in the present study

proves that low carbon high manganese austenitic
steels have very good mechanical properties, both
high strength and good plasticity. Also, it can be
found out that both steels have continuous yielding
characteristics and high strain hardening exponent,
which is very good for automobile industry.
In the present work, TRIP and TWIP effects
coexisted in No. 1 steel with manganese content of
23. 8 % ; while only TWIP effect appeared when the
manganese content was 3 3 % (No. 2 steel) in the
tensile testing at a strain rate of
s-l at room
temperature. This means that when manganese content is relatively low, T R I P effect would be dominant in the deformation; whereas only TWIP effect
would appear when manganese content reaches a
certain value.

No. 6

Microstructures and Mechanical Properties of Fe-Mn-C Al, Si)

( a ) Morphology;

Fig. 5

( a ) Morphology;

Fig. 6

TRIP/TWIP Steels

69 *

(b) Diffraction pattern of martensite;

(c) Diffraction analysis
Microstructures of deformed No. 1 steel (TEM)

(b) Diffraction pattern of twins;

(c) Diffraction analysis
Microstructures of deformed No. 1 steel (TEM)

From Table 2 , it can be found that No. 1 steel

possesses high strength and high plasticity, and
No. 2 steel has a relatively high strength and extraordinary plasticity. In TRIP steels, phase transformation would take place preferentially in 7 matrix
in the area where local necking tends to occur.
Therefore, the necking would be restrained and the
uniform elongation could be enhanced. Simultaneously, the strength of the material also increases due
to the intensive local strain hardening. For TWIP
steels, the reason for achieving enhanced elongation
is principally the same as that for the TRIP-effect.
The strain-induced deformation twins will be preferentially formed in a local deformation region, and
the dislocation motion will be retarded since these
twin boundaries could act as strong barriers, which
makes the strength of the materials Increase. Comparing the mechanical properties of two alloys, it
can be found that the No. 1 steel with both T R I P
and T W I P effects has a higher strength; while the
No. 2 steel with only TWIP effect has a higher plasticity. This implies that TRIP effect can obviously
increase the strength of high manganese steel, and
TWIP effect is beneficial to the increase of plasticity
of the material.
Generally, the main strengthening mechanisms
are solid solution strengthening, grain boundary

strengthening, strain hardening and hardening from

phase transformation for structural steels. In the
present case, the steel with a higher manganese content has a lower strength, which means that solid
solution strengthening is not a major strengthening
mechanism. But the strain induced phase transformation or twinning makes the most important contribution t o the increase of the materials strength.
For practical applications, it is not good for
steels t o have a very high manganese content.
Therefore, TRIP and TWIP coexisting effects could
be utilized to obtain balance mechanical properties
with a lower manganese content in this kind of
steels. Also, quantitative descriptions of the effects
of T R I P or T W I P on strength and plasticity of materials need to be investigated further. This part of
work is under research.

Conclusions

(1) For low carbon high manganese austenitic

steel with manganese content of 23.8% ( N o . 1
steel), TRIP and TWIP effects coexist; while only
TWIP effect appears when manganese content is
33% (No. 2 steel) in the tensile testing at a strain
rate of 1 0 - ~
s-* at room temperature.
(2) T h e strength of No.1 steel is higher than
that of No. 2 steel, and the plasticity of No. 1 steel is

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Journal of Iron and Steel Research, International

lower than that of No. 2 steel under the same testing

condition, which indicates that TRIP effect may
make more contribution to the strength of the materials, while TWIP effect is beneficial to the increase
of plasticity of the materials.
( 3 ) As manganese content increases, the strength
of the high manganese austenitic steel decreases,
while the plasticity of the material increases, which
indicate that solid solution strengthening is not a
major strengthening mechanism, but the strain induced phase transformation or twinning makes a very important contribution to the strength of these
steels.
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Grassel 0. High Strength Fe-Mn-CAl, Si) TRIP/TWIP Steel

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