Modeling of mechanical behaviour of HSLA low carbon bainitic steel thermomechanically processed

A comparative study of the microstructure characterization and mechanical properties was done in a HSLA low carbon (0.08%) bainitic steel containing boron, developed by industry as a bainitic steel grade APIX80. The steel was submitted to two different thermomechanical processes. In the first one, controlled rolling followed by accelerated cooling was applied in laboratory mill. In the second processing, specimens of the same steel were submitted to hot torsion testing. The influence of cooling conditions like start cooling temperature, cooling rates and finish cooling temperature on the microstructure and mechanical properties were investigated. The final microstructure obtained was a complex mixture of polygonal ferrite, perlite, bainite and martensite/retained austenite constituent. The use of multiple regression analysis allowed the establishment of quantitative relationships between the accelerated cooling variables and mechanical properties of the steel available from Vickers microhardness and tensile tests