Evolution of Through-Thickness Texture in Ultra Purified 17%Cr Ferritic Stainless Steels

Texture inhomogeneity usually takes place in ferritic stainless steels due to the lack of phase transformation and recrystallization during hot strip rolling,which can deteriorate the formability of final sheets.In order to work out the way of weakening texture inhomogeneity,conventional hot rolling and warm rolling processes have been carried out with an ultra purified ferritic stainless steel.The results showed that the evolution of through-thickness texture is closely dependent on rolling process,especially for the texture in the center layer.For both conventional and warm rolling processes,shear texture components were formed in the surface layers after hot rolling and annealing;sharp α-fiber and weakγ-fiber with the major component at{111}〈110〉 were developed in both cold rolled sheet surfaces,leading to the formation of inhomogeneousγ-fiber dominated by{111}〈112〉after recrystallization annealing.In the center layer of conventional rolled and annealed bands,strongα-fiber and weakγ-fiber textures were formed;the cold rolled textures were comprised of sharpα-fiber and weakγ-fiber with the major component at{111}〈110〉,and inhomogeneousγ-fiber dominated by{111}〈112〉 was formed after recrystallization annealing.By contrast,in the centre layer of warm rolled bands,the texture was comprised of weakα-fiber and sharpγ-fiber,andγ-fiber became the only component after annealing.The cold rolled texture displayed a sharpγ-fiber with the major component at{111}〈112〉and the intensity ofγ-fiber close to that ofα-fiber,resulting in the formation of a nearly homogeneousγ-fiber recrystallization texture in the center layer of the final sheet.

Influence of the finish rolling temperatures on the microstructure and texture evolution in the ferritic stainless steels

The influence of the finish rolling temperature on the microstructure and texture evolution of Nb and B micro-alloyed ultra purified Cr17 ferritic stainless steels was investigated. The hot rolled bands were produced by conventional rolling process and the finish rolling at relatively low temperatures or ＂warm rolling＂. The microstructure was observed by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction was used to characterize the texture evolution processes. The results showed that as compared to conventional hot rolling process, the warm rolling has led to the refined and homogeneous microstructure and uniform recrystallization texture along γ-fiber in final sheets, indicating that the finish rolling at relatively low temperatures can be the effective way to improve significantly the formability of final sheets.