Hot stamping is a well-known process to produce structural automotive parts with an excellent strength-to-weight ratio. However, this process is more expensive due to the lower energy efficiency and operating cost of the traditional roller-hearth furnace. Additionally, lower ductility and toughness are commonly recognized as the main disadvantages of the current hot stamped ultra-high-strength parts. Refinement of austenite grains could be a profitable way to improve the strength of hot stamped parts. In this work, the evolution of reversed transformation in asymmetrically cryogenically rolled samples was studied in order to control the austenite. Thermomechanical simulation and heat treatment in the salt bath were used to investigate the reversed transformation process, and the typical microstructures were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Compared with symmetric prerolling, ferrite recrystallization could be remarkably inhibited by asymmetric rolling at the liquid nitrogen temperature (LNT) during the reheating process. Additionally, the nucleation of the austenite inner grains can also be promoted and the dynamics of the reversed transformation accelerated by asymmetric prerolling. Such phenomena might be very useful to refine the parent austenite grains before press hardening and enhance the new hot stamping strategy by partial fast reheating.
Keywords: asymmetric rolling; phase transformation; quenchable steel; recrystallization.