Cold-drawn pearlitic steel wires were known to exhibit increasing strength with increasing elongation and were therefore highly interesting for a wide field of engineering applications. When isochronal heat treatment was performed at different temperatures, the tensile strength as well as the electrical resistivity decrease well before microstructural changes were observed. An Arrhenius analysis of both processes yield mean activation energies of about 0.3eV. This was construed as interaction between carbon atoms and defects in ferrite, mainly vacancies and vacancy clusters.

Carbon-Defect Interaction during Recovery and Recrystallization of Heavily Deformed Pearlitic Steel Wires. C.Borchers, Y.Chen, M.Deutges, S.Goto, R.Kirchheim: Philosophical Magazine Letters, 2010, 90[8], 581-8