Effect of Plastic Hot Deformation on the Hardness and Continuous Cooling Transformations of 22MnB5 Microalloyed Boron Steel

The strains, transformation temperatures, microstructure, and microhardness of a microalloyed boron and aluminum precoated steel, which has been isothermally deformed under uniaxial tensile tests, have been investigated at temperatures between 873 and 1223 K, using a fixed strain rate value of 0.08 s⁻¹. The effect of each factor, such as temperature and strain value, has been later valued considering the shift generated on the continuous cooling transformation (CCT) diagram. The experimental results consist of the starting temperatures that occur for each transformation, the microhardness values, and the obtained microstructure at the end of each thermomechanical treatment. All the thermomechanical treatments were performed using the thermomechanical simulator Gleeble 1500. The results showed that increasing hot prestrain (HPS) values generate, at the same cooling rate, lower hardness values; this means that the increasing of HPS generates a shift of the CCT diagram toward a lower starting time for each transformation. Therefore, high values of hot deformations during the hot stamping process require a strict control of the cooling process in order to ensure cooling rate values that allow maintaining good mechanical component characteristics. This phenomenon is amplified when the prestrain occurs at lower temperatures, and thus, it is very sensitive to the temperature level.