Study of the Plastic Deformation in Nanocrystalline and Ultrafine Iron and Carbon Steels

Samples of nanostructured and ultrafine grained steels with carbon content ranging from 0.05 to 0.55%wt. have been obtained by a warm consolidation process from mechanically milled powders and subsequent heat treatments. In general, homogeneous grain size distributions were obtained except for the low-carbon steel in which a bimodal grain size distribution was observed when it was heat treated at high temperatures. The stress-strain response has been studied by means of compression tests. Nanostructured materials showed high strength but poor results in terms of ductility. In the low-ultrafine range (mean grain size between 100-500 nm) the three materials showed an increase in the ductility with strain softening. Finally, when the average grain size was close to 1 µm samples showed larger ductility and strain hardening.