Flow Behavior Characteristics and Processing Map of Fe-6.5wt. %Si Alloys during Hot Compression

The flow behavior of Fe-6.5wt. %Si alloys during hot compression was investigated at temperatures 650–950 °C and strain rates 0.01–10 s−1. The results showed that the flow stress depended distinctly on the deformation temperatures and strain rates. The flow stress and work hardening rate increased with the decrease of temperature and the increase of strain rate. The activation energy under all the deformation conditions was calculated to be 410 kJ/mol. The constitutive equation with hyperbolic sine function and Zener–Hollomon parameter was developed. The peak stress, critical stress, and steady-state stress could be represented as σ = A + Bln(Z/A). Dynamic recrystallization occurred under the deformation conditions where the values of Z were lower than 1020. Processing maps were established to optimize the processing parameters. The power dissipation efficiency decreased in the high temperature and low strain rate region, increased in the high temperature and high strain rate region, and remained unchanged in other regions with the increase of true strain. Furthermore, the unstable area expanded. The true strain of 0.7 was the optimum reduction according to the processing map. Based on the analysis of surface quality, microstructures, and ordered structures, the optimized processing parameters for the Fe-6.5wt. %Si alloys were the temperature and strain rate of higher than 900 °C and 0.01–10 s−1, respectively, or 800–900 °C and lower than 0.4 s−1, respectively