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Evolution of microstructure during heat treatment plays a fundamental role in the resulting mechanical properties of steel. Today, mechanical properties in conjunction with technological properties, such as weldability, formability, and machinability, and their optimum combinations, are widely discussed in a number of mechanical engineering disciplines. In this manner, requirements arise for developing steels which could offer high strength and good formability, and which could be used for making parts with high resistance to failure and with a long life. One present-day example of such steels involves Q&P-processed martensitic steels. Their properties are dictated by their treatment, as well as their alloying, particularly by the silicon content. Silicon fundamentally affects microstructure evolution during Q&P processing and, as a result, mechanical properties. With this way it is possible to receive microstructures consinsting of martensite and retained austenite with an ultimate tensile stress of more than 1600 MPa and a uniform elongation of more than 12 %.

Treatment of high-alloy tool steels that involves transition to the semi-solid state can transform the sharp-edged primary carbides which usually form during solidification. These carbides severely impair toughness and are virtually impossible to eliminate by conventional treatment routes. Upon classical semi-solid processing which dissolves these carbides, the resulting microstructure consists of polyhedral and super-saturated austenite embedded in lamellar austenite-carbide network. This type of microstructure reflects in the mechanical properties, predominantly in material behaviour under tensile loading. Such a network, however, can be removed by appropriate thermomechanical treatment. In the present experiment, various procedures involving heating to the semi-solid state were tested on X210Cr12 tool steel. The feedstock was heated to the temperature range of 1220 – 1280 °C. The heating was followed by procedures involving either water quenching to the forming temperature, room temperature or temperature from the range from 500 °C to 1000 °C followed by reheating to the forming temperature. It was found that the development of the lamellar network strongly depends on the temperature of heating to semi-solid state. Thermomechanical treatment produced microstructures in which the matrix consisted of a mixture of polyhedral austenite grains and the M-A constituent. In addition, the initial lamellar eutectic network was partially or even completely melted and substituted with a mixture of very fine recrystallized austenite grains and precipitates of chromium carbides. Some fine M7C3 carbides were present in the austenitic-martensitic matrix as well. When appropriate processing parameters were chosen, very good mechanical properties were obtained, among them a hardness of 860 HV10.

Today's advanced steels are required to possess high strength and ductility. It can be achieved by choosing an appropriate steel chemistry which has a substantial effect on the properties obtained by heat treatment. Mechanical properties influenced the presence of retained austenite in the final structure. Steels of this group typically require complicated heat treatment which places great demands on the equipment used. The present paper introduces new procedures aimed at simplifying the heat treatment of high-strength steels with the use of material-technological modelling. Four experimental steels were made and cast, whose main alloying additions were manganese, silicon, chromium, molybdenum and nickel. The steels were treated using the Q-P process with subsequent interrupted quenching. The resulting structure was a mixture of martensite and retained austenite. Strength levels of more than 2000 MPa combined with 10-15 % elongation were obtained. These properties thus offer potential for the manufacture of intricate closed-die forgings with a reduced weight. Intercritical annealing was obtained structure not only on the basis of martensite, but also with certain proportion of bainitic ferrite and retained austenite.

Today's requirements for the design of functional parts and components demand low weight and, at the same time, high strength. There are several heat treatment methods which can satisfy such requirements. These include TRIP heat treatment, long-time low-temperature austempering, and Q&P processing. It is the Q&P processing which delivers excellent results in terms of mechanical properties and light weight. It relies on stabilising retained austenite through partitioning of carbon between martensite and austenite. The carbon-enriched austenite then becomes a ductile constituent in the otherwise brittle martensitic matrix. A precondition for successful Q&P processing consists in sufficient silicon content in the steel, which precludes precipitation of undesirable cementite. Cementite would otherwise form as a result of enrichment of retained austenite with carbon. To ascertain the usefulness of higher silicon level in steel for Q&P processing, one can compare Q&P processes in steels with various levels of this element

Today, new types of materials and procedures are sought continuously in order to achieve lower manufacturing costs, reduced energy consumption, shorter production times and other savings. In terms of the materials, TRIP steels are an attractive choice, as they provide an excellent combination of strength and ductility. They also offer good energy absorption in crash scenarios. Their main use is in the production of automotive body parts. One can expect that well-chosen processing parameters and unconventional forming routes would enable a wider range of thin-walled products to be made of these steels. Those could include thin-walled hollow products with excellent mechanical properties imparted by effective manufacturing routes at relatively low costs. If these materials are to be employed in real-world forming processes, an appropriate forming route must be chosen, integrated into an appropriate production chain and then optimized in terms of its parameters. This article describes a study of a rotary spin extrusion process. In the first stage, the impact of strain magnitude on microstructural evolution was studied in CMnSi steel using physical modelling of thermomechanical treatment. Subsequently, trials of a real-life technology chain, which efficiently combined incremental forming and heat treatment, were carried out on low-alloy CMnSi and CMnSiNb steels. The resulting products were stepped hollow parts of various diameters. Their strength was close to 1000 MPa and their elongation level exceeded 20%.

Thanks to the available advanced control technology, manufacturing processes which have been described in the past but their hidden potential remained untapped are now continuing to be developed. As a result, even conventional materials which have been around for years can be manipulated to obtain unusual microstructures with specific mechanical and physical properties. Semi-solid processing belongs to the above-described group: it had been studied in the past but, due to complicated process control, it gradually lost its appeal. However, advanced techniques of temperature field control enable engineers to control this complex process accurately. One of the innovative methods of semi-solid processing is mini- thixoforming. As it focuses on very small-size products, it offers very steep heating curves and extremely high solidification and cooling rates, when compared to conventional thixoforming. The capabilities of this process were tested on X210Cr12 ledeburitic tool steel. After the optimum processing conditions were found, additional materials were tried, ranging from low- carbon microalloyed steels through medium-alloy steels to high-alloy tool steels. The microstructure evolution upon the mini-thixoforming process is an issue of its own. The final microstructure of X210Cr12 consisted of more than 90% of austenite and chromium carbides. Semi-solid processing of a steel with a high vanadium content led to a microstructure comprising MA matrix and globular vanadium carbides. In a low-alloy steel, martensitic microstructure was obtained.

The contemporary development of technological processes for the production of modern multiphase steels can be characterized by the need for precise control of their technological parameters. The design of modern technological processes that allow sophisticated microstructures to be obtained usually cannot be carried out on real production equipment for technical as well as economical reasons. Therefore, new processes and test devices are continuously being developed to make it possible to simulate and model thermomechanical treatments on small specimens with precise control and monitoring of process parameters. A simulator for experimental modelling of thermomechanical processes has been developed at the University of West Bohemia. In this paper, to demonstrate the feasibility of simulating thermomechanical treatments with this setup on a lab scale, we discuss the thermomechanical treatment of TRIP steels without isothermal holding - a processing route that is difficult to handle and thus poses several technological as well as economic problems. The realistic processing of wire rolling with different cooling strategies is tested on the TRIP CMnSiNb steel. Our results show that the processing route without isothermal holding allows to obtain multiphase microstructures with a tensile strength of up to 835 MPa and a ductility A5mm = 25%.

Steel is a traditional material which has been used by mankind for more than five thousand years. We may therefore be tempted to believe that we know practically everything about steel and its forms and variants which offer an extraordinary and broad range of properties. It is this diversity of properties which makes steel such a popular and widely used material. And yet, in recent years new opportunities have emerged for processing steel by unconventional techniques and producing novel, as yet unknown or unusual microstructures. This paper describes several examples of how microstructure evolution can be modified and how new and unconventional processing routes can be developed. These examples present several results of projects carried out in recent years by FORTECH Research Centre of Forming Technology and the University of West Bohemia in collaboration with their research partners.