Effect of a pulsed magnetic treatment on the dislocation substructure of a commercial high strength steel

The improvement of physical and mechanical properties of some hard-to-deform metals under influence of an external magnetic field has been investigated for the last 30 years. Until now the magnetic filed treatment technology has not been applied widely in the field of engineering. In this paper, deformed specimens of commercial high strength steel were treated by a pulsed magnetic field using a self-made pulse magnetic treatment equipment. It has shown that when the deformed specimens are subjected to a pulsed magnetic process, the residual stress in the specimens is reduced by about 15–35%, and the dislocation substructure is changed due to the motion of dislocations. The behavior might be attributed to the effects of thermal and athermal activation of dislocations and magnetic field induced strain (magnetostriction).