Application of texture inheritance on manufacturing ultra-high strength pearlitic steel wire

ABSTRACT

To obtain both ultra-high strength and good ductility in pearlitic steel wires, a new processing technique was proposed following the principle of inherited texture. Microstructure evolution of pearlitic wires was investigated by FE-SEM, EBSD and TEM, and while mechanical properties were determined by tensile and torsional tests. Two types of wires with different ferrite <110> texture intensity were obtained by varying pre-drawing strain. The orientation between ferrite <110> and drawing direction exhibited a great effect on the deformation behaviour of pearlite. For the ferrite <110> parallel to drawing direction, cementite lamellae were straightened and dislocations within ferrite were evenly distributed. However, for the ferrite <110> at an angle to drawing direction, the cementite was bent and the distribution of dislocations within ferrite was uneven. Consequently, pearlitic wires with a higher texture level exhibited an extremely high tensile strength, coupled with a remarkable torsion tolerance.

This is part of a thematic issue on Pearlitic Steel Wires.

KEYWORDS:

• Cold drawing
• pearlitic wires
• texture inheritance
• tensile strength
• torsion tolerance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (CN) (grant no. 51371050), the Key Research Project of Jiangsu Province (grant no. BE2015097) and the Industry-University Strategic Research Fund of Jiangsu Province (BY2016076-08), and the study was also partly supported by Six Talent Peaks program of Jiangsu Province (2015-XCL-004).