Carbon in solution and the Charpy impact performance of medium Mn steels

TL;DR

This study investigates how carbon content influences the Charpy impact performance of medium Mn steels, revealing that higher carbon reduces impact energy despite similar ductility, and suggesting avoiding C to promote TWIP+TRIP effects.

Contribution

It demonstrates that carbon in solution significantly affects impact toughness in medium Mn steels, providing insights into alloy design considerations beyond tensile behavior.

Findings

Lower C steel had higher impact energy (320 J/cm²) than higher C steel (66 J/cm²).

Impact performance is primarily governed by carbon in solution, not interface segregation.

TRIP effect was more prominent in low C specimens, influencing fracture behavior.

Abstract

Carbon is a well known austenite stabiliser and can be used to alter the stacking fault energy and stability against martensitic transformation in medium Mn steels, producing a range of deformation mechanisms such as the Transformation Induced Plasticity (TRIP) or combined Twinning and Transformation Induced Plasticity (TWIP $+$ TRIP) effects. However, the effect of C beyond quasi-static tensile behaviour is less well known. Therefore, two medium Mn steels with 0.2 wt\% and 0.5 wt\% C were designed to produce similar austenite fractions and stability and therefore tensile behaviour. These were processed to form lamellar and mixed equiaxed $+$ lamellar microstructures. The low C steel had a corrected Charpy impact energy (KV\textsubscript{10}) of 320 J cm\textsuperscript{-2} compared to 66 J cm\textsuperscript{-2} in the high C steel despite both having a ductility of over 35\%. Interface segregation, e.g. of tramp elements, was investigated as a potential cause and none was found. Only a small amount of Mn rejection from partitioning was observed at the interface. The fracture surfaces were investigated and the TRIP effect was found to occur more readily in the Low C Charpy specimen. Therefore it is concluded that the use of C to promote TWIP$+$TRIP behaviour should be avoided in alloy design but the Charpy impact performance can be understood purely in terms of C in solution.