Materials and Design 30 (2009) 2379–2385

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Materials and Design

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

Effect of water quenching process on microstructure and tensile properties

of low alloy cold rolled dual-phase steel
Qingge Meng a,b,*, Jun Li b, Jian Wang c, Zuogui Zhang b, Lixiang Zhang a,b
a
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, No. 800, Dongchuan Road, Shanghai City 200040, PR China
b
Baoshan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., Shanghai City, 201900, PR China
c
University of Science and Technology, Beijing 100083, PR China

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

Article history: An investigation was made to determine the effect of water quenching process on microstructure and
Received 10 September 2008 tensile properties of cold rolled dual-phase (DP) steel (0.06C–0.20Si–1.30Mn). Correlations of microstruc-
Accepted 28 October 2008 ture, tensile properties, and water quenching parameters were established. Analysis of optical and trans-
Available online 5 November 2008
mission electron microscopy shows that the microstructures are mainly composed of ferrite and
martensite phases. The fraction of martensite covers from 20% to 68.36% in this study, which plays a
Keywords: key role on tensile properties. A small amount of retained austenite or bainite can also be found for dif-
Dual-phase steel
ferent water quenching processes. It is observed that water quenching process can improve the DP steel
Water quenching
Continuous annealing
grade of 450 MPa up to 600 MPa and still keep good ductility. Further, the ultimate tensile strength can
even be improved above to 1000 MPa under some water quenching processes.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The development of light weight vehicles with fuel economy
and high passive safety has been realized through the usage of high
strength steels. Among these, the dual-phase (DP) steels, mainly
consisting of a dispersion of hard martensite grains (10–30%, vol-
ume fraction) in a soft ferrite matrix [1], have impressive mechan-
ical properties, such as continuous yielding behavior [2,3], superior
strength-ductility, better formability and excellent surface finish
over other high strength low alloy (HSLA) steels of similar chemis-
try [4]. Thus, the DP steels are widely used for car body panels,
wheels and bumpers etc. [5,6].
The performance of cold rolled DP steels mainly depends on
their chemical composition such as alloy content of each phase
and microstructural parameters such as phase volume fraction
and distribution etc. The reasonable alloy composition design for
DP steels can obtain the required mechanical properties at low
cost. A few researchers have studied the effect of chemical compo-
sition, especially the micro-alloying elements and volume fraction
of compositive phases (the retained austenite, ferrite, martensite
and bainite etc.) on the mechanical properties of DP steels [1,7–
9]; on the other hand, the thermomechanical processing condi-
tions, involving hot rolling, cold rolling, and especially annealing
result in the final microstructure. The strength grade of the devel-
* Corresponding author. Address: Room 601, Office Building of Cold Rolling Mill,
BAOSTEEL Branch, No. 885 Fujin Road, Shanghai City 200941, PR China. Tel.: +86 21
13564539332.
E-mail address: mggsjtu@sjtu.edu.cn (Q. Meng).
oping DP steels covers from 400–1000 MPa and the related micro-
structure and processing technologies are very complicated [10].
Commercial DP steels are preferably produced by continuous
annealing process in the intercritical (Ferrite (a) + austenite (c))
zone so as to obtain the satisfying sheets properties such as good
surface, and optimum homogeneous properties all over the sheets.
The typically continuous annealing process has the stages of heat-
ing, soaking, slow cooling, rapid cooling and overaging [7,8,11]. Of
these stages, the rapid cooling stage plays a key role on the harde-
nability of the high strength steel. Up to now, the high hydrogen
gas-jet cooling is one of the effective cooling methods used in con-
tinuous cooling line; however, it is much slower and more expen-
sive compared with water quenching. Some researchers [8,12,13]
have studied the effect of intercritical annealing parameters on
the microstructure and mechanical properties of DP steels. How-
ever, the effect of water quenching process on microstructure
and tensile properties has been rarely studied so far [14]. Water
quenching is one of the most economical and high powerful rapid
cooling methods. It can produce high strength steels with much
lower alloying elements. Many engineers attempt to use water
quenching in continuous annealing line.
In this study, a kind of DP steel with the nominal tensile
strength of 450 MPa conventionally produced by fast cooling
method of gas-jet has been subjected to different water quenching
processes. Correlations of microstructure, tensile properties, and
water quenching parameters were established. It is aimed to im-
prove the DP steel strength grade to 600 MPa by this low power
quenching technology, thus reduce the production cost and im-
prove the galvanizing and solder ability.

0261-3069/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2008.10.026
2380 Q. Meng et al. / Materials and Design 30 (2009) 2379–2385

Fig. 2. Volume fraction of recrystallized ferrite as a function of continuous heating

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the water quenching process. temperature and holding time.

Fig. 3. Optical (a) and TEM (b) micrographs of the water quenched sample after holding at 600 °C for 180 s, the heating rate is 5 °C/s.

Fig. 4. The relationships of water quenching temperature and mechanical properties of ultimate tensile strength, 0.2 pct yield strength (a), Vicker’s microhardness and total
elongation (b), the samples were heated to the quenching temperature at the heating rate of 5 °C/s and water quenched without holding time.

2. Experimental ultimate tensile strength of the steel are 0.06C–0.20Si–1.3Mn–

0.017P–0.006S, wt.% and 450 MPa, respectively. It was confirmed
The cold rolled steel used in this study was supplied by BAO- that the microstructure of the cold rolled steel was deformed fer-
STEEL cold rolling line. The chemical composition and the nominal rite matrix and a small quantity of non-laminar pearlite colonies.
 Q. Meng et al. / Materials and Design 30 (2009) 2379–2385
Fig. 5. Effect of holding time and temperature on mechanical properties of ultimate tensile strength, Vicker’s microhardness (a), 0.2 pct yield strength and total elongation
(b), during recrystallization, the samples were heat treated for different time and temperatures, then quenched into the water, the average heating rate is 5 °C/s.
Annealing was carried out with the 260 mm  100 mm  1.0 mm
samples in the continuous annealing simulation furnace. The pro-
cessing schedules are given in Fig. 1. The heating and slow cooling
rates are 5 °C/s and 17 °C/s, respectively. The annealing variables
studied were the temperature and time of soaking and the water
quenching temperature. The characteristic temperatures of Ac1
and Ac3 determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) at
heating rate of 20 °C/min are 720 °C and 860 °C, respectively.
Transverse and longitudinal processed plane samples were pre-
pared following standard metallographic procedures and exam-
ined by optical (Leica DMRD) and transmission electron
microscopy (TEM, JEM-2100F). The polished specimens were
etched with 4% nital solution for microstructure observation. The
volume fractions of substitute phases are estimated using standard
point-counting technique. Hardness values of differently heat trea-
ted specimens were determined at a load of 300 gf using a MVK-
H21 Vicker’s hardness tester. Tensile specimens with 80 mm gauge
length were machined from the treated samples following stan-
dard of ISO6892:1998. The tests were performed using a ZWICK
Z100 tensile testing machine at a cross head rate of 5 mm/min.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Recrystallization process
The cold rolled samples were heated (5 °C/s) to different tem-
peratures (500 °C, 550 °C, 600 °C, 650 °C and 700 °C) and soaking
different time (0 s, 120 s and 180 s), then directly quenched into
water of room temperature. Fig. 2 shows the relationship of vol-
ume fraction of recrystallized ferrite with soaking temperature
and time. Below 500 °C, the recrystallization volume fraction of
ferrite in Fig. 2 is about zero, thus only recovery process takes place
below 500 °C in the holding time range of 0–180 s, i.e., this stage
generally involves both the annihilation of dislocations and their
reorganization into lower energy configurations, e.g. cells or sub-
grains [15]. The deformed ferrite grains begin to recrystallize at
550 °C. At 600 °C, the volume fraction of recrystallized ferrite in-
creases sharply with soaking time and it is up to 74% for 180 s.
Fig. 3a and b shows the corresponding optical and TEM micro-
graphs, respectively. The microstructure of the cold rolled steel
was elongated grains of ferrite and a small quantity of deformed
colonies of pearlite [10]. The dislocation density around the broken
pearlite is very high. During recrystallization annealing, the ferrite
and carbides will nucleate and grow up with holding temperature
and time. Thus, the microstructure is mainly composed of white
ferrite matrix and small amount of black colonized carbides.
2381
Recrystallization is found to be completed when the heating tem-
perature is near 700 °C. Generally, the recrystallization process is
related to the steel chemical composition and heating rate etc.
The higher the alloying elements and heating rate, the higher the
recrystallization completion temperature. Rocha et al. reported
that the recrystallization completion temperature of DP (0.08%C–
1.91%Mn) steel was in the range of 685–730 °C at the heating rate
of 2–5 °C/s, which agrees well with our results.
The cold rolled samples were heated to different temperatures at
the heating rate of 5 °C/s and directly quenched into water without
holding time. The relationships of quenching temperature and
mechanical properties of ultimate tensile strength, 0.2 percentage
(pct) yield strength, Vicker’s microhardness and total elongation
are shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen that the ultimate tensile strength
and yield strength of Fig. 4a decrease with quenching temperature
below Ac1, which is attributed to the recrystallization of the de-
formed grains. The total elongation shown in Fig. 4b accordingly in-
creases with the quenching temperature below Ac1. In the
temperature range of 650–700 °C, corresponding to the completion
of recrystallization, the ultimate tensile strength and total elonga-
tion reach the minimum (490 MPa) and maximum (27%) value,
respectively. In contrast, at the temperature above Ac1, the ultimate
tensile strength and yield strength increase with quenching temper-
ature, and the total elongation decreases with quenching tempera-
ture. Further, the ultimate tensile strength increases with
temperature around Ac1, but the yield strength decreases around this
temperature point. This can be attributed to the different micro-
structure of the samples. The samples just before Ac1 are mainly
composed of recrystallized ferrite and pearlite, while the samples
just after Ac1 are mainly composed of soft ferrite and hard martens-
ite. The latter microstructure gives a lower ratio of yield/tensile
strength. The ultimate tensile strength increases up to 742 MPa
and the total elongation reduces to 13% when heating to 820 °C. This
is attributed to the increase of martensite volume fraction during the
intercritical annealing. The microhardness with quenching temper-
ature shown in Fig. 4b agrees well with the ultimate tensile strength.
Fig. 5 shows the effect of holding time and temperature on the
mechanical properties of ultimate tensile strength, Vicker’s microh-
ardness, 0.2 pct yield strength and total elongation during recrys-
tallization. The samples were heat treated for different time and
temperatures, then quenched into the water. The average heating
rate is 5 °C/s. The ultimate tensile strength and microhardness
shown in Fig. 5a agree well with each other, the higher the peak
temperatures, the lower the ultimate tensile strength and microh-
ardness. However, they have similar values for 650 °C and 700 °C.
This is attributed to the completion of recrystallization. At 600 °C,
2382 Q. Meng et al. / Materials and Design 30 (2009) 2379–2385

Fig. 6. Microstructure of DP steel after different water quenching processes: (a) 730 °C, holding time 0 s; (b) 730 °C, holding time 0 s, vertical to the cold rolling direction; (c)
800 °C, holding time 120 s; (d) 800 °C, holding time 120 s, slow cooling to 670 °C; (e) 80 °C, holding time 120 s, slow cooling to 630 °C; (f) 800 °C, holding time 120 s, slow
cooling to 570 °C; the heating rate is 5 °C/s, slow cooling rate is 17 °C/s.

the ultimate tensile strength decreases sharply with holding time,
which is related to the intense increase of recrystallized ferrite vol-
ume fraction with holding time shown in Fig. 2. The yield strength
Rp0.2 shown in Fig. 5b has the same trend as the ultimate tensile
strength with holding time and temperature, while the total elon-
gation in Fig. 5b is contrary to the ultimate tensile strength.
3.2. Intercritical annealing
Generally, the microstructure and related mechanical proper-
ties of cold rolled DP steels depend on their chemical composition
and continuous annealing parameters. The annealing temperature
and soaking time in the intercritical phase (austenite–ferrite) field
controls the volume fraction of austenite content, thus affecting
the hardenability of individual austenite pools. At the critical cool-
ing rates, the austenite present fully transforms to martensite
resulting in simple mix of ferrite and martensite. On slow cooling
rates, the austenite pool first decreases in size by epitaxial ferrite
growth on retained ferrite and at still slower rates, the remaining
austenite enriched in carbon transforms to martensite, bainite
and/or pearlite depending upon the alloy content of austenite
and cooling rate. Compared with the specimens consisting of re-
 Q. Meng et al. / Materials and Design 30 (2009) 2379–2385 2383

Fig. 7. TEM micrographs and SAED inserts of dual-phase steel after different water quenching processes: (a) 730 °C, holding time 0 s; (b) 800 °C, holding time 120 s; (c)
800 °C, holding time 120 s, slow cooling to 670 °C; (d) 800 °C, holding time 120 s, slow cooling to 570 °C; the heating rate is 5 °C/s, slow cooling rate is 17 °C/s, F, a-Ferrite, M-
Martensite, MA-Martensite plus retained austennite, RA-Retained Austenite, c-Austenite, BF-Bainitic Ferrite.

tained ferrite and martensite, the DP steel with new epitaxial fer-
rite formed during slow cooling shows superior ductility and
deformation properties [16], thus, the slow cooling process not
only keeps the strip flatness but also controls the relative amount
of the phases and their strength. The following water quenching
may produce the desired high strength with much lower alloying
content.
The cold rolled samples were intercritically heat treated for dif-
ferent soaking temperatures (730 °C, 780 °C, 800 °C and 820 °C)
and time (0 s, 120 s, 180 s), then slow cooling (17 °C/s) to the water
quenching temperature. The average heating rate is 5 °C/s. The
optical microstructures of Fig. 6a and b are parallel and vertical
to the sample rolling direction, respectively. The sample was
heated to 730 °C and then quenched into water without soaking
time. It can be seen the microstructure consists mainly of white
ferrite grains and dark grey martensite, indicating the sample
annealing at 730 °C has been in the austenite–ferrite zone. This
agrees well with the above results. Fig. 6c–f shows the metallo-
graphic micrographs of the samples after different water quench-
ing processes at the soaking temperature of 800 °C. All the
micrographs are mainly composed of white ferrite and dark grey
martensite. The volume fractions of martensite are 37.4%, 28.1%,
23.54% and 17.17% from Fig. 6c–f, i.e., the volume fraction of mar-
tensite decreases with the decrease of slow cooling end tempera-
ture. In general, to obtain a good combination of strength and
ductility, the DP steel must have specific volume fraction of mar-
tensite, some study and industrial investigation show that the opti-
mized volume fraction of martensite is in the range of 10–30% [17].
The above samples annealing at 800 °C show good combination of
strength and ductility.
The typical TEM micrographs and selected area electron diffrac-
tion (SAED) of samples after various water quenching processes are
shown in Fig. 7, the experimental conditions are corresponding to
Fig. 6. It confirms the microstructures of all samples are composted
of ferrtie and martensite. Further, a small amount of retained aus-
tenite is found in Fig. 7b and c. A small amount of bainite is found
in Fig. 7d, which is attributed to the lower slow cooling end
temperature.
Fig. 8 shows the effect of soaking and quenching temperatures
on mechanical properties of ultimate tensile strength (a), 0.2 pct
yield strength (b), Vicker’s microhardness (c), and total elongation
(d). The ultimate tensile strength, 0.2 pct yields strength and Vick-
er’s microhardness increase with water quenching temperatures.
In contrast, the total elongation decreases with the water quench-
ing temperatures. At the same relative water quenching tempera-
ture, it seems there is a positive correlation between the ultimate
tensile strength, 0.2 pct yield strength, Vicker’s microhardness
and soaking temperatures. Above the soaking temperature
800 °C, the ultimate tensile strength of some samples can reach
600 MPa and their ductility is still good to meet the requirements
of industrially used DP steel with the nominal strength of 600 MPa.
These results essentially related to the volume fraction of martens-
ite and the strength of compositional phases shown in Fig. 9, the
volume fraction of martensite increases with the soaking time
and water quenching temperature. At the soaking temperature
820 °C and holding 120 s, the volume fraction of martensite sur-
2384 Q. Meng et al. / Materials and Design 30 (2009) 2379–2385

Fig. 8. Effect of soaking and quenching temperature on mechanical properties of ultimate tensile strength (a), 0.2 pct yield strength (b), Vicker’s microhardness (c), and total
elongation (d), the samples were heated to different soaking temperatures at the heating rate of 5 °C/s, holding 120 s, slow cooling to different temperatures and then
quenched into water.

600 s and then quenched into water. Fig. 10 shows the optical
and TEM micrographs. It can be seen the microstructure is mainly
composed of dark grey martensite, white ferrite and a small
amount of retained austenite. The volume fraction of martensite
is 68.36%, the ultimate tensile strength, 0.2 pct yield strength and
total elongation A80 are 1146 MPa, 846 MPa and 3%, respectively,
indicating water quenching can improve the strength to a large
scale even for such low carbon and alloying steel. The low alloy
composition will improve the galvanizing and solder ability. In
all, water quenching can make the DP steel with the nominal ulti-
mate tensile strength of 450 MPa up to grade 600 MPa which still
has good ductility, and even martensite steel with the ultimate
tensile strength above 1000 MPa. Further, attention will also be
paid to the flatness of high strength steel strips produced by water
quenching in future.

4. Conclusions

The effect of water quenching process on microstructure and

Fig. 9. Volume fraction of martensite as a function of soaking temperature and
quenching temperature after slow cooling.
passes 40%, and the ultimate tensile strength is up to about
742 MPa. To further study the potential strength improvement of
the DP steel, the sample was intercritically annealed at 830 °C for
tensile properties of cold rolled dual-phase (DP) steel (0.06C–
0.20Si–1.30Mn) was studied using optical, transmission electron
microscopy, Vicker’s hardness tester and tensile testing machine.
It was found the recrystallization was completed when heating
to about 700 °C. The TEM shows the microstructure of intercritical
annealing samples is composted mainly of ferrtie and martensite,
however, a small amount of retained austenite or bainite can also
be found for different water quenching processes. Above the soak-
 Q. Meng et al. / Materials and Design 30 (2009) 2379–2385
Fig. 10. Optical (a) and TEM (b) micrographs of the water quenched sample after holding at 830 °C for 600 s, the heating rate is 5 °C/s, M-Martensite, RA-Retained Austenite.
ing temperature 800 °C, appropriate quenching process can im-
prove the commercial DP steel with the nominal ultimate tensile
strength of 450 MPa up to grade 600 MPa, and the ultimate tensile
strength can be improved above 1000 MPa. The water quenching
adopted as the rapid cooling method in continuous annealing line
may reduce the production cost, improve the galvanizing and sol-
der ability.
Acknowledgement
This work is supported by the Foundation of Baoshan Iron and
Steel Co., Ltd with the project number of D07SAAE400.
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