Austenite-Based Fe-Mn-Al-C Lightweight Steels: Research and Prospective

Fe-Mn-Al-C lightweight steels have been investigated intensely in the last a few years. There are basically four types of Fe-Mn-Al-C steels, ferritic, ferrite-based duplex/triplex (ferrite + austenite, ferrite + austenite + martensite), austenite-based duplex (ferrite + austenite), and single-austenitic. Among these steels, austenite-based lightweight steels generally exhibit high strength, good ductility, and outstanding weight reduction effects. Due to the addition of Al and high C content, κ’-carbide and κ-carbide are prone to form in the austenite grain interior and at grain boundaries of lightweight steels, respectively, and play critical roles in controlling the microstructures and mechanical properties of the steels. The microstructural evolution, strengthening mechanisms, and deformation behaviors of these lightweight steels are quite different from those of the mild conventional steels and TRIP/TWIP steels due to their high stacking fault energies. The relationship between the microstructures and mechanical properties has been widely investigated, and several deformation mechanisms have also been proposed for austenite-based lightweight steels. In this paper, the current research works are reviewed and the prospectives of the austenite-based Fe-Mn-Al-C lightweight steels are discussed