Yielding behavior and its effect on uniform elongation in IF steel with various grain sizes

In the present study, IF steel specimens with different grain sizes ranging from 12 to 0.45 μm were fabricated by accumulative roll-bonding process and subsequent annealing. Tensile tests revealed that by decreasing the mean grain size down to an ultrafine range smaller than approximately 1.5 μm, yielding behavior of the IF steel gradually changed from continuous yielding to discontinuous yielding. An abrupt loss in the uniform elongation occurred, when the average grain size was smaller than about 1 μm. Hall–Petch analysis on the yield stress and uniform elongation implied that the abrupt loss in the uniform elongation in the UFG grain size range corresponded to the appearance of the discontinuous yielding behavior. As it has been found in many UFG materials, discontinuous yielding is believed to be a unique mechanical behavior of UFG materials, and it has significant importance on the uniform elongation of UFG materials.