Hot deformation of austenite and prediction of microstructure evolution of cross-wedge rolling

Constant strain rate compression tests were carried out on AISI 5140 using the Gleeble-3500 thermomechanical simulator. The mechanical behavior and the dynamic structure changes were investigated metallographically in the temperature range from 900 to 1100 °C and at the strain rate ranging from 0.1 to 10 s−1. A dynamic recrystallized grain size model and a volume fraction model were presented as well as a diagram of dynamic microstructure state. The cross-wedge rolling process for shafts was simulated through establishing a theoretical model on the finite element software DEFORM. The distributions of the different field-variable, such as effective strain, effective strain rate and temperature, were obtained. Meanwhile, mean grain size distribution after rolling was presented in this paper.