Effect of Al on the low cycle fatigue deformation behavior and microstructure evolution of Fe–22Mn-0.6C TWIP steel

The dependence of low cycle fatigue (LCF) behavior and microstructure evolution of Fe–22Mn-0.6C twinning-induced plasticity (TWIP) steel on the alloying element Al has been investigated under fully reversed total strain amplitude control with a nominal strain rate of 0.006 s−1 and strain amplitudes ranging from 0.002 to 0.010 at room temperature. The results indicate a strong dependence of LCF response and evolved microstructure on the addition of Al, owing to its effect on the stacking fault energy (SFE). At all strain amplitudes, the 3Al steel with a higher SFE exhibits a visibly lower cyclic hardening and a higher cyclic softening, resulting in a lower cyclic yield strength than the 0Al steel. As compared with the 0Al steel, the relatively high SFE of the 3Al steel causes accumulated plastic strain due to the improved slip planarity and reversibility of dislocations, thereby decreasing the fatigue life. The optical microstructure is featured by increase in slip band density with increasing strain amplitude for both steels. However, the slip band density of the 3Al steel is higher than that of the 0Al steel. Moreover, cyclic loading promotes the formation of dislocation cells, rough labyrinths as well as planar dislocation arrays. Deformation twins are observed only in the 0Al steel with a visible lower critical twinning stress due to its low SFE as compared to the 3Al steel.