Prediction of microstructural evolution in hot rolling

A set of unified viscoplastic constitutive equations, which models recrystallized volume fraction, dislocation hardening, grain size evolution and their effects on viscoplastic flow of a steel under hot forming conditions, has been implemented into the commercial FE solver MARC through the user defined subroutine UVSCPL. An FE model and the corresponding numerical procedure have been established to simulate the microstructure evolution in the conditions of rolling a commercial steel plate. A series of FE simulations have been carried out to study the effects of rolling parameters on microstructural evolution of the material. This provides evidence for the selection of hot rolling parameters, so that the materials with designed microstructure can be processed.