Effect of Softening Annealing on Recrystallization and Austenite Transformation of a Cold-rolled Medium-Mn Steel

doi:10.11901/1005.3093.2025.285

Chinese Journal of Materials Research

2026, Vol. 40

Issue (6): 401-413 DOI: 10.11901/1005.3093.2025.285

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Effect of Softening Annealing on Recrystallization and Austenite Transformation of a Cold-rolled Medium-Mn Steel

ZHENG Qinyuan¹^,², ZHENG Chengwu¹^,², LU Yi¹^,², ZHU Hailong¹, LIU Peng¹(

), LUAN Yikun¹^,², LI Dianzhong¹^,²(

)

^1.Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China
^2.School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Shenyang 110016, China

Cite this article:

ZHENG Qinyuan, ZHENG Chengwu, LU Yi, ZHU Hailong, LIU Peng, LUAN Yikun, LI Dianzhong. Effect of Softening Annealing on Recrystallization and Austenite Transformation of a Cold-rolled Medium-Mn Steel. Chinese Journal of Materials Research, 2026, 40(6): 401-413.

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Abstract

In response to the increasing demands for weight reduction, enhanced passenger safety and reduced manufacturing cost, advanced high strength steels (AHSS) have gained considerable attention as crucial structural materials in automobile industry. Medium-Mn steels (MMnS) stand out as the most promising candidate for the new generation of AHSS, due to their advantages such as cost-effectiveness, superior strength-elongation balance, pronounced work-hardening capacity, and excellent wear resistance. Given the high hardenability of MMnS, a softening annealing is typically required prior to cold rolling to alleviate internal stresses. Temperature variations of softening annealing significantly affect the microstructure evolution during subsequent heat treatment. In this study, treatments of subcritical and intercritical softening annealing are conducted on MMnS, and the effect of microstructures resulted from distinct softening annealing processes on the static recrystallization and phase transformation of cold-rolled MMnS is investigated.Results indicate that subcritical softening annealing yields a microstructure composed of tempered martensite matrix embedded with cementite. In contrast, intercritical softening annealing produces a dual-phase lamellar microstructure comprising martensite and ferrite. After cold rolling, both softening annealed microstructures suffer severe plastic deformation, leading to lath-shaped structures with higher defect densities. Compared to tempered martensite, the martensite lamellae resulted from intercritical softening annealing and cold rolling exhibit a tendency for lamellar collapse and spheroidization during subsequent heat treatment, significantly promoting the static recrystallization of martensite. The rapid martensite recrystallization induces widespread and dispersed nucleation of austenite in the early stage of intercritical annealing, thereby improving the microstructure homogeneity and refining grains. Furthermore, intercritical softening annealing effectively inhibits the massive nucleation of austenite during rapid heating, thus expanding the design window for heat treatment processing for cold-rolled medium-Mn steels.

Key words: metallic materials cold-rolled medium-Mn steel softening annealing martensite recrystallization austenite transformation

Received: 15 September 2025

TG142.1

Fund: Advanced Materials National Science and Technology Major Project(2025ZD0611102);National Natural Science Foundation of China(52501193);National Natural Science Foundation of China(52321001)

Corresponding Authors: LIU Peng, Tel: (024)23971973, E-mail: pliu17s@imr.ac.cn;
LI Dianzhong, Tel: (024)23971281, E-mail: dzli@imr.ac.cn

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	ZHENG Qinyuan
	ZHENG Chengwu
	LU Yi
	ZHU Hailong
	LIU Peng
	LUAN Yikun
	LI Dianzhong

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https://www.cjmr.org/EN/10.11901/1005.3093.2025.285 OR https://www.cjmr.org/EN/Y2026/V40/I6/401

Fig.1 Schematic diagrams of softening annealing for MMnS (a), microstructures of the samples after softening annealing (b, d) and cold rolling (c, e) (b, c) SA690 samples, (d, e) SA450 samples (α_F—ferrite, α_M—martensite, α_F(DEF)—deformed ferrite, α_M(DEF)—deformed martensite, θ—cementite)

Fig.2 Schematic diagrams of subcritical annealing (a) and intercritical annealing (b) for cold-rolled MMnS suffered softening annealing at different temperatures

Fig.3 EBSD analysis revealing the microstructures of the SA450 sample after cold-rolling (a) and annealing at 500 ^oC for 10 min (b) and 3 h (c) (a1-c1) band contrast (BC) maps overlapped the GB and phase distribution maps, (a2-c2) IPF maps overlapped the GB maps, (a3-c3) kernel average misorientation (KAM) maps overlapped the GB maps

Fig.4 EBSD analysis revealing the microstructures of the SA690 sample after cold-rolling (a) and annealing at 500 ^oC for 10 min (b) and 3 h (c) (a1-c1) BC maps overlapped the GB and phase distribution maps, (a2-c2) IPF maps overlapped the GB maps, (a3-c3) KAM maps overlapped the GB maps

Fig.5 Dilatation curves of SA450 samples during heating with different heating rates (a) dilatation curves, (b) the first derivatives of dilatation curves (ΔL—change in sample length, L₀—initial sample length)

Fig.6 Quenched microstructures of SA450 samples heated to 680 ^oC (a, d), 700 ^oC (b, e) and 720 ^oC (c, f) at different rates (a-c) 0.1 ^oC/s, (d-f) 20 ^oC/s (α_M(DEF)—deformed martensite, α_REX—recrystallized ferrite, θ—cementite, γ—retained austenite, α_M—martensite)

Fig.7 Dilatation curves of SA690 samples during heating with different heating rates (a) dilatation curves, (b) the first derivatives of dilatation curves

Fig.8 Quenched microstructures of SA690 samples heated to 680 ^oC (a, d), 700 ^oC (b, e) and 720 ^oC (c, f) at different rates (a-c) 0.1 ^oC/s, (d-f) 20 ^oC/s

Fig.9 Schematic diagram showing the continuous recrystallization of a highly deformed lamellar microstructure^[43]

Fig.10 Quenched microstructures of SA450 (a) and SA690 (b) samples heated to 680 ^oC at 0.1 ^oC/s (a1, b1) BC images overlapped the GB and phase distribution images, (a2, b2) KAM images overlapped the GB images

Fig.11 Quenched microstructures of SA450 (a) and SA690 (b) samples heated to 680 ^oC at 20 ^oC/s (a1, b1) BC images overlapped the GB and phase distribution images, (a2, b2) KAM images overlapped the GB images

Fig.12 Microstructure evolution mechanism of cold-rolled MMnS after different softening annealing treatments

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