TRIP-steels offer a good combination between strength and ductility. Therefore TRIP-steels are widely used in the automobile industries. The aim of this work is to study the stability of involved phases during heating and to identify the kinetics of the occuring phase transformations. For that purpose, in-situ diffraction measurements, using high energy synchrotron radiation were conducted. The analysis revealed the decomposition of the metastable austenitic phase into carbide and ferrite along the heating process and the regeneration of the austenite by further heating of the sample.
In-situ analysis of solid state phase transformation in TRIP-aided steels by synchrotron diffraction
(2011)
Energy dispersive synchrotron diffraction (EDXRD) analysis and 3 dimensional digital image correlations were conducted to investigate the stress and strain effected transformation behavior during tensile loading of low alloyed TRansformation Induced Plasticity (TRIP) steel. This technique allowed for phase specific stress measurement during certain tensile load steps in the elastic and also plastic regime. Additionally the simultaneous determination of the load dependent phase content was realized. The results show that the martensite transformation starts only after exceeding the overall yield point and is finished before reaching the uniform elongation, whereas a large portion of the austenite remains unchanged in the structure. Furthermore, the martensite transformation related to the stress in the γ-phase and α-phase was analyzed and quantified.
Numerical simulation of component and assembly behaviour under different loading conditions is a main tool for safety design in automobile body shell mass production. Knowledge of local material behaviour is fundamental to such simulation tests. As a contribution to the verification of simulation results, the local deformation properties of spot-welded similar and dissimilar material joints in shear tension tests were investigated in this study for a TRIP steel (HCT690T) and a micro-alloyed steel (HX340LAD). For this reason, the local strain distribution was calculated by the digital image correlation technique (DIC). On the basis of the hardness values and microstructure of the spot welds, the differences in local strain between the selected material combinations are discussed. Additionally, the retained austenite content in the TRIP steel was analysed to explain the local strain values. Results obtained in this study regarding similar material welds suggest significant lower local strain values of the TRIP steel HCT690T compared to HX340LAD. One reason could be the decrease of retained austenite in the welded area. Furthermore, it has been ascertained that the local strain in dissimilar material welds decreases for each component compared with the corresponding similar material weld.