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High ductility of ultrafine-grained steel via phase transformation

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Abstract

There is often a tradeoff between strength and ductility, and the low ductility of ultrafine-grained (UFG) materials has been a major obstacle to their practical structural applications despite their high strength. In this study, we have achieved a ∼40% tensile ductility while increasing the yield strength of FeCrNiMn steel by an order of magnitude via grain refinement and deformation-induced martensitic phase transformation. The strain-rate effect on the inhomogeneous deformation behavior and phase transformation was studied in detail.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program (DMR-0421219) and International Materials Institutes (IMI) Program (DMR-0231320) with Dr. C. Bouldin and Dr. C. Huber as the Program Directors, respectively. X-L. Wang acknowledges support by Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, United States Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. Y.H. Zhao and Y.T. Zhu were supported by the DOE Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP) program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, 37996, USA

    S. Cheng

  2. Neutron Scattering Science Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 37831, USA

    S. Cheng

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, 37996, USA

    H. Choo

  4. Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 37831, USA

    H. Choo

  5. Materials Science and Technology Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 87545, USA

    Y.H. Zhao

  6. Neutron Scattering Science Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 37831, USA

    X-L. Wang

  7. Materials Science and Technology Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 87545, USA

    Y.T. Zhu

  8. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, 37996, USA

    Y.D. Wang

  9. Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, 60439, USA

    J. Almer

  10. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, 37996, USA

    P.K. Liaw

  11. Department of Metallurgical Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, 120-749, Korea

    J.E. Jin & Y.K. Lee

Authors
  1. S. Cheng
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  2. H. Choo
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  3. Y.H. Zhao
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  4. X-L. Wang
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  5. Y.T. Zhu
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  6. Y.D. Wang
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  7. J. Almer
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  8. P.K. Liaw
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  9. J.E. Jin
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  10. Y.K. Lee
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to H. Choo or Y.K. Lee.

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Cheng, S., Choo, H., Zhao, Y. et al. High ductility of ultrafine-grained steel via phase transformation. Journal of Materials Research 23, 1578–1586 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1557/JMR.2008.0213

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/JMR.2008.0213

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