Investigation of austenitising behaviour of medium-Mn steel in the hot-stamping heating process

In this study, the austenite transformation behaviour in a medium-Mn (MMn) steel is investigated during heat treatments that replicate those occurring in low-temperature hot stamping (LTHS), with the aim of better understanding this behaviour to optimise heat-treatment design. The austenitisation behaviour and critical phase transformation temperatures during the LTHS heating process and their dependence on heating conditions are investigated using dilatometry with a Gleeble 3800 thermal-mechanical simulator, covering heating rates of 1–25 °C s⁻¹ and soaking temperatures of 630–900 °C. Both a higher heating rate and higher soaking temperature are found to be beneficial to shorten the time required for obtaining a given austenite fraction. The martensite start temperature (M_s) shows a rapid increase with increasing soaking temperatures when austenitisation is partial, and a slower increase after full austenitisation. Excellent ultimate tensile strength values of around 1750 MPa and total elongation values of around 9.3 % are obtained for the material after the LTHS heating process. A physically based model describing the austenitic transformation under these conditions has been adopted and calibrated. The model shows good agreement with austenitic transformation diagrams constructed from experimental data, and thus can function as a guide for selecting optimum heat-treatment parameters for LTHS.