Texture development in strip cast type 304 stainless steels

Strip casting is a new process, which can produce cast strips with thicknesses of only 2--5mm and eliminate hot rolling. Cold rolled strips produced by strip casting have low mechanical anisotropy, which is related to the texture of the strip; however, this link has not yet been investigated. Texture development from strip casting through to cold rolling and subsequent annealing was therefore studied.; Cast strips of two types were produced by solidification into the dual (delta ferrite + gamma austenite) phase and single (delta ferrite) phase domains. The {lcub}001{rcub}⟨uvw⟩ delta ferrite texture is converted into the {lcub}001{rcub}⟨uvw⟩ gamma final texture in the first steel, while most of it transforms into the fcc {lcub}011{rcub}⟨uvw⟩ fiber in the second. The observed variant selection can be explained using the Bain strain model.; The cast strips and a hot rolled strip were subsequently cold rolled and annealed. The gamma-to-alpha' deformation-induced transformation took place during cold rolling and low symmetry rolling textures were produced in the (delta ferrite + austenite) steel after 50% reduction by cold rolling. By contrast, the 80% cold rolled textures displayed orthorhombic symmetry. The recrystallization texture components changed from {lcub}001{rcub}⟨100⟩ and {lcub}110{rcub}⟨111⟩ to {lcub}110{rcub}⟨001⟩, {lcub}110{rcub}⟨112⟩ and {lcub}112{rcub}⟨111⟩ when the cold reduction was increased. The cast strips displayed weaker recrystallization textures than the conventionally processed material. Moreover, the delta ferrite steel contained stronger {lcub}110{rcub}ND fiber components than the two-phase material. Texture development in the rolled and annealed products is discussed in terms of the Kurdjumov-Sachs transformation relationship.