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Zn and ZnFe coated 22MnB5 and 34MnB5 steels were subjected to the direct press hardening process in order to investigate the influence of steel composition on the resulting phase structures.Microstructures were characterized using advanced methods of microscopy. In addition, X-ray diffraction, glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy and thermodynamic calculations with Thermo-Calc® were carried out to support the analysis. The results indicate that the steel composition has a clear effect on the phase development within coating and interface regions.Whereas the behavior of the 22MnB5 was comparable to earlier investigations, a clearly nonconventional behavior of the 34MnB5 was observed: the formation of martensitic micro constituents, designated here as α'-Fe(Zn), were identified after die-quenching. The regions of the α'-Fe(Zn) formed mainly in vicinity of steel/coating interface and were emerged into the steel by sharing martensitic morphology with the base steel. The thermodynamic calculations suggest that carbon is effective in stabilizing the γ-Fe(Zn) phase, which enables the formation of the α'-Fe(Zn) in fast cooling. Therefore, the higher initial C content of the 34MnB5 may result in the kinetic stabilization of the γ-Fe(Zn) as the inter-diffusion between Zn and Fe occurs during annealing. Simultaneously occurring carbon partitioning from α-Fe(Zn) to γ-Fe(Zn) could explain a clearly increased C content of the coating/steel interface as well as higher Zn contents in the α'-Fe(Zn) phase compared to 22MnB5. Actually, the present study shows that the same phenomenon occurs also in 22MnB5 steels, but in a much smaller scale. In Zn and ZnFe coated 34MnB5, the thickness of the α'-Fe(Zn) layer was increased with longer annealing times and at higher temperatures. The morphology of the α'-Fe(Zn) layer resembled plate-like martensite and can be assumed to be brittle. Regarding this, the formation of α'-Fe(Zn) interface layer needs to be taken into account in press hardening of 34MnB5 steels.

Models describing the constitutive flow behaviour of a metallic material are desired for appropriate process design and realization of defect-free components. In this study, constitutive equations based on the hyperbolic-sinusoidal Arrhenius-type model have been developed to define the hot deformation characteristics of a CoCrFeMnNi high-entropy alloy. The experimental true stress-true strain data were generated over a wide temperature (1023-1423 K) and strain rates (10 −3-10 s −1) ranges. The impact of strain rate and temperature on deformation behaviour was further characterized through a temperature compensated strain rate parameter, i.e. Zener-Hollomon parameter. Additionally, a mathematical relation was employed to express the influence of various material constants on true-strain ranging from 0.2 to 0.75. Typical third order polynomial relations were found to be appropriate to fit the true-strain dependency of these material constants. The accuracy of the developed constitutive equations was evaluated by using the average absolute relative error (AARE) and correlation coefficient (R); the obtained values were 7.63% and 0.9858, respectively, suggesting reasonable predictions. These results demonstrate that the developed constitutive equations can predict the flow stress behaviour of the alloy with a good accuracy over a wide range of temperature and strain rate conditions and for large strains.

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This work presents a comprehensive analysis of the effects of strain and strain rate on the adiabatic heating and the mechanical behavior of a CoCrFeMnNi high-entropy alloy (HEA). In this investigation, compression tests were carried out at quasi-static and dynamic strain rates. The temperature of the specimens was measured using high speed infrared thermography. The high strain rate tests were conducted with a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar, and the tests at lower strain rates were performed using a universal testing machine. The material exhibited a positive strain rate sensitivity, as true stress-strain plots were shifted upwards with the increase in strain rate. With exception of the isothermal tests, temperature rise and the Taylor-Quinney coefficient (β) were noticeably similar for the investigated strain rates. This study shows that the common assumption that β can be considered 0.9 and constant is possibly not very accurate for the CoCrFeMnNi alloy. The β is influenced by at least strain and strain rate.

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The intercritical annealing and isothermal bainitic processing response was studied for three Nb and V microalloyed Transformation-Induced Plasticity (TRIP)-assisted 980 MPa grade steels. Their mechanical and microstructural properties were compared to industrially produced TRIP 800 steel. Depending on the isothermal holding temperature and microalloying, the experimental steels reached properties comparable to the reference steel. The retained austenite content did not show direct correlation to elongation properties. Niobium was found to be more effective microalloying element than vanadium in increasing the elongation properties, which were investigated by measuring true fracture strain from tensile test specimens.