Carbon-defect interaction during recovery and recrystallization of heavily deformed pearlitic steel wires

Abstract

Cold-drawn pearlitic steel wires are known to exhibit increasing strength with increasing elongation and are therefore highly interesting for a wide field of engineering applications. When isochronal heat treatment is performed at different temperatures, the tensile strength as well as the electrical resistivity decrease well before microstructural changes are observed. An Arrhenius analysis of both processes yield mean activation energies of about 0.3 eV. This is construed as interaction between carbon atoms and defects in ferrite, mainly vacancies and vacancy clusters.