Studies on Softening Kinetics of Niobium Microalloyed Steel Using Stress Relaxation Technique

Stress relaxation was studied in a series of low carbon, high Mn microalloyed steels containing 0.012, 0.06 and 0.1 wt% Nb. The stress-relaxation curves were modeled using a physically-based model that takes into account the time evolution of precipitation, recovery and recrystallization as well as their interactions. The results confirm that high Mn-high Nb design can offer distinct advantage over the low-Mn design for the application of near net shape processing.