Eutectoid steel strips are designed for the production of parts for intensive use such as clutches, seat slides, and springs as they exhibit<p>excellent strength levels and wear resistance. These properties arise from the unique morphology of lamellar pearlite which can be considered<p>as a self-laminated nanoscale composite. However, a spheroidization annealing step is nowadays necessary to improve the cold forming properties before further cold rolling steps.<p>This thesis is aimed at improving the tensile ductility of the hot rolled products of eutectoid composition in order to eliminate the intermediate<p>annealing step. Two strategies are proposed.<p>The first is to transpose the concept of controlled rolling developed for HSLA to<p>eutectoid steels. Through a strict adjustment of the austenite processing and of the cooling strategy, it is possible to improve the ductility<p>of the final lamellar microstructure. The way the processing parameters influence the hot deformation of austenite, the eutectoid transformation and of the subsequent spheroidization annealing is deeply<p>investigated. It is found that refinement and pancaking of austenite<p>is beneficial as it reduces the pearlite block size improving the total<p>tensile elongation. Accelerated cooling is of paramount importance to<p>achieve fine Interlamellar spacing (ILS), which lead to high strength<p>levels and accelerate spheroidization during subsequent annealing.<p>The second approach involves intercritical or warm deformation. Warm processing of eutectoid steels is first explored by torsion testing<p>and then up-scaled to a pilot rolling-line. The interactions between thermomechanical parameters, rolling forces generated and microstructural<p>evolution are carefully scrutinized. During concurrent hot deformation, spheroidization of cementite takes place almost instantaneously<p>in both torsion and rolling. The restoration processes occurring in the ferrite matrix depends on the strain path and the strain rates. Low strain rates (0,1 s−1) and simple shear promotes the formation of a recrystallized-like HABs network of about 3μm in size.<p>Plane strain compression and high strain rates (10 s−1) leads to the formation of a typical recovered dislocation substructure (LABs) of 1μm in size. During annealing, no recrystallization occurs and the LABs substructure remains stable. This substructure influences drammatically the mechanical properties: the strength is very high and the work-hardening behavior is poor due to high recovery rate in the region close to the LABs. However, due to the presence of spheroidized<p>cementite particles the ductility of warm rolled eutectoid steels is higher than that of ultra fine grained low carbon steels. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The capacity of soft annealing of low alloyed tubes at Ovako’s continuous annealing furnaces have been evaluated by comparing how it is done today with information from published and internal articles on the subject. It was found that it is possible to reduce the cycle time by 30 % for one furnace, 55 % for one furnace and 72 % for two furnaces. Two separate fullscale tests were made to assess whether the faster soft annealing procedure was feasible. The tests were performed without any reconstruction of the furnace and were made by continuously vary the speed of the batch inside thefurnace. The temperature in the batch was measured and compared with results from computer simulations of the heating/cooling sequences. The computer simulations were performed in COMSOL. The soft annealing was evaluated according to the SEP-520 standard ,which means evaluating the microstructure and hardness. The results show that the faster heat treatment could yield lower grades than today but still meet it’s requirements. In order to achieve this increase  a reconstruction of the furnaces is needed and the reconstruction is  briefly treated in the report. Ideas to further increase the speed of the soft annealing procedure are also presented.

Les alliages de titane α/β ont beaucoup d’applications dans des domaines industriels divers comme l’aéronautique. Le phénomène de globularisation qui se produit lors de traitements thermomécaniques est un phénomène important dans la mesure où une microstructure globulaire présente une tenue mécanique et une ductilité accrues.Les microstructures lamellaires sont constituées de colonies de lamelles de phase α parallèles qui se développent dans les grains β au cours de leur refroidissement. La globularisation se fait en deux étapes : les lamelles se subdivisent d’abord en segments plus courts, puis ces segments globularisent, au cours de la déformation à chaud et des traitements thermiques. La subdivision des lamelles se fait au niveau des sous-joints formés au cours de la déformation à chaud. Lors de traitements thermiques prolongés, les plus gros globules de phase α grossissent au détriment des plus petits. La formation des sous-joints et le grossissement des globules n’ont pas été étudiés en détail dans ce travail. L’accent a été mis sur les mécanismes de migration des interfaces α/β et α/α qui conduisent à la subdivision des lamelles et à leur globularisation.Des essais de compression à chaud et des traitements thermiques appliqués à des échantillons de Ti-6Al-4V ont permis de confirmer que l’épaisseur des lamelles et de leur orientation sont des facteurs importants pour la globularisation. Les lamelles plus fines et celles orientées parallèlement à l’axe de compression globularisent plus facilement. Ce travail expérimental a permis de mieux appréhender la complexité du phénomène de globularisation et d’introduire un cadre numérique adapté pour sa simulation. Une méthode à champ complet, basée sur la méthode Level-Set dans un cadre Eléments Finis, a ainsi été testée pour simuler les mécanismes physiques de migration interfaciale menant à la subdivision des lamelles et à l'évolution vers une forme globulaire. Les premiers résultats sont très prometteurs et illustrent le potentiel du cadre numérique proposé. / Α/β titanium alloys have many industrial applications in various fields such as aeronautics. Spheroidization is a phenomenon that occurs in initially lamellar α/β titanium alloys during thermomechanical processing and receives considerable attention as spheroidized microstructures exhibit enhanced strength and ductility.Lamellar microstructures are made of colonies of parallel α lamellae developed inside β grains while they are cooled down. Spheroidization actually proceeds in two successive steps: the lamellae first split into smaller α laths, which subsequently undergo spheroidization. This occurs during hot-deformation and subsequent annealing. Lamella splitting occurs where subboundaries were formed inside lamellae during hot-deformation. Over long term annealing the spheroidized α phase particles undergo coarsening. The formation of subboundaries and coarsening were not addressed in this work. The focus has been placed on the interfacial kinetics mechanisms leading α lamellae splitting during the first stages of spheroidization.Hot compression tests and subsequent annealings carried out on Ti-6Al-4V samples confirmed that the thickness and the orientation of the lamellae are important factors with regards to spheroidization. Thinner lamellae and lamellae oriented parallel to the compression axis spheroidize faster. Those experiments contributed to a better understanding of the phenomenon and allowed to introduce a suitable numerical framework to simulate the early stages of spheroidization. A full field method in a Finite Element/ Level Set framework has thus been tested for simulating the involved physical mechanisms of interface migration that lead to lamellae splitting and the subsequent shape evolution of the α laths towards a spheroidal shape. First results are promising and illustrate the potential of this numerical framework