Annealing Behavior of Surface-Locally Cold-Deformed Low-Carbon Steel with a Large Strain Gradient

The annealing behavior of surface-locally cold-deformed 0.2 mass% carbon steel with a large strain gradient was investigated, with special attention paid to the change in grain size. The surface local deformation was introduced by a ball-dropping (BD) model experiment. The local plastic strain profile evaluated from pure iron was used to confirm the occurrence of surface local deformation. It was found that the BD test led to severe local deformation near the surface, with a large strain gradient. Both the ferrite and as-transformed austenite exhibited a gradual change in grain size along the depth direction after annealing. The increased nucleation density of austenite in the deformed surface layer is not attributed to the increase in the density of the recrystallized ferrite–ferrite grain boundaries, but rather to the broken and dispersed cementite particles introduced by the deformation. The gradual change in ferrite and austenite grain size should be attributed to be the gradual change in the deformation degree of ferrite and perlite.