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API X60 steel used for reeled pipeline was subjected to different amounts of cyclic plastic deformation (CPD) by multiple tension–compression tests in order to study the deformation behavior and microstructural evolution during each stage of reel-lay installation process. It was found that the yield strength was significantly reduced by about 110 MPa during the first CPD cycle due to the Bauschinger effect. However, the yield strength was little affected by the subsequent CPD cycles, and the yield strength difference between tension and compression tended to reach a steady-state value of 23 MPa after multiple CPD cycles. With the increase in CPD cycles, the proportion of low-angle grain boundaries declined from 50.9 to 35.7%, and the CPD contributed to the formation of immovable dislocation walls and cells due to the dislocation rearrangement, causing the stable yield strength. The CPD process with strain level of 3% had no prominent effect on the tensile strength and elongation, because the change in microstructures was not enough to alter the work hardening completely after multiple CPD cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]