Microstructural evolution and mechanical properties on an ARB processed if steel studied by X-ray diffraction and EBSD

Accumulative Roll Bonding (ARB) is one of the so-called severe plastic deformation (SPD) processes, allowing the production of metals and alloys with ultrafine (micro-nano) structures. Materials with ultrafine grains present attractive properties like the simultaneous increase in strength and ductility. Our interest in these materials is focused on their microstructural evolution during ARB processing, eventually responsible for the enhancement of those mechanical properties. In the current work we follow the evolution of the microstructure in an interstitial-free (IF) steel deformed by ARB after consecutive processing cycles, by means of Electron BackScatter Diffraction (EBSD) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Particularly, we present results related to texture, grain (GS) and domain sizes, grain boundary character, density of Geometrically Necessary Dislocations (GND), Grain Orientation Spread (GOS), lattice parameters, microstrain, dislocation density and their spatial arrangement. After 5 ARB cycles the system shows a microstructure constituted mainly by submicrometric grains with high angle boundaries and low presence of dislocations inside the grains.