New insights into the properties of high-manganese steel

In the Collaborative Research Centre 761’s “Steel ab initio - quantum mechanics guided design of new Fe based materials,” scientists and engineers from RWTH Aachen University and the Max Planck Institute for Iron Research conducted research on mechanism-controlled material development with a particular focus on high-manganese alloyed steels. From 2007 to 2019, a total of 55 partial projects and four transfer projects with industrial participation (some running until 2021) have studied material and process design as well as material characterization. The basic idea of the Collaborative Research Centre was to develop a new methodological approach to the design of structural materials. This paper focuses on selected results with respect to the mechanical properties of high-manganese steels, their underlying physical phenomena, and the specific characterization and modeling tools used for this new class of materials. These steels have microstructures that require characterization by the use of modern methods at the nm-scale. Along the process routes, the generation of segregations must be taken into account. Finally, the mechanical properties show a characteristic temperature dependence and peculiarities in their fracture behavior. The mechanical properties and especially bake hardening are affected by short-range ordering phenomena. The strain hardening can be adjusted in a never-before-possible range, which makes these steels attractive for demanding sheet-steel applications.