A feasible route to produce 1.1 GPa ferritic-based low-Mn lightweight steels with ductility of 47%

High- and medium-Mn (H/M-Mn) base lightweight steels are a class of ultrastrong structural materials with high ductility compared to their low-Mn counterparts with low strength and poor ductility.However, producing these H/M-Mn materials requires the advanced or high-tech manufacturing techniques, which can unavoidably provoke labor and cost concerns. Herein, we have developed a facilestrategy that circumvents the strength–ductility trade-off in low-Mn ferritic lightweight steels, by employing low-temperature tempering-induced partitioning (LTP). This LTP treatment affords a typical Fe-2.8Mn-5.7Al-0.3C (wt.%) steel with a heterogeneous size-distribution of metastable austenite embeddedin a ferrite matrix for partitioning more carbon into smaller austenite grains than into the larger austenite ones. This size-dependent partitioning results in slip plane spacing modification and lattice strain,which act through dislocation engineering. We ascribe the simultaneous improvement in strength andtotal elongation to both the size-dependent dislocation movement in austenite grains and the controlleddeformation-induced martensitic transformation. The low-carbon-partitioned large austenite grains increase the strength and ductility as a consequence of the combined martensitic transformation andhigh dislocation density-induced hardening and by interface strengthening. Additionally, high-carbonpartitioned small austenite grains enhance the strength and ductility by planar dislocation glide (inthe low strain regime) and by cross-slipping and delayed martensitic transformation (in the high strainregime). The concept of size-dependent dislocation engineering may provide different pathways for developing a wide range of heterogeneous-structured low-Mn lightweight steels, suggesting that LTP maybe desirable for broad industrial applications at an economic cost.