A new processing route to produce Ultrafine-Grained Dual-Phase steel has been proposed, involving cold-rolling and subsequent intercritical annealing of a fibrous ferrite–martensite starting structure. Ultrafine-grained DP (UFG-DP) steel with an average ferrite grain size of about ~2.7 μm and an average martensite island size of ~2.9 μm was achieved. Tensile testing revealed superior mechanical properties (the ultimate tensile strength of 1267 MPa and uniform elongation of 8.2%) for the new DP steel in comparison with the fibrous DP steels. The superior mechanical properties are attributed to the influence of microstructure refinement on the work-hardening and fracture behavior.

The change of twinning morphology plays an important role in the modification of Al-Si alloys, which are widely used in industrial applications. However, the interpretation of this change is still insufficient. In this work, the microstructure of twins was investigated in two kinds of Al-Si alloys with different additions of Ba using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). Unlike the normal {111} twin that exists in Ba-free alloy, discontinuous twins and multiple twins were observed in the Ba-containing alloy. In addition, the 9R structure formed by the dissociation of twins was firstly observed at the turning of discontinuous twins and the intersection of multiple twins in Al-Si alloys.

Grain refinement and precipitation are two effective ways to improve the mechanical properties of Mg-RE alloys. In this work, a two-step forming process is proposed. This includes cold rolling and subsequent annealing at high temperature for a short duration. By the two-step forming process, grains can be refined from 100 μm to 20 μm in compare with ~30 μm by common hot rolling at 450 °C for a reduction of 80%. The sample shows more distinct aging hardening, as the hardness amplification of 60 HV is twice that of the hot-rolled sample. The precipitation is observed by high angle annular dark field-scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF-STEM). Dynamic precipitation in the sample by the two-step route is found to be effectively suppressed. Interestingly, after subsequent annealing, the density of precipitation, especially β′, become much higher than that in hot-rolled samples.

Twinning structures and their interfacial segregation play a key role in strengthening of magnesium alloys. Micro-steps are frequently existed in the incoherent twin boundaries, while the effect of them on interface and interfacial segregation is still not clear. In this work, we performed an atomic-scale microstructure analysis using high-angle annular dark field scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF-STEM) to explore the effect of micro-steps on twin and its interfacial segregation in Mg-Ag alloy. Diffraction pattern of the incoherent {10 $\overline{1}$ 1} twin shows that the misorientation has a slight tilt of 5° from its theoretical angle of 125° due to the accumulated effects of the micro-steps and their misfit dislocations in twin boundaries. Most of the micro-steps in {10 $\overline{1}$ 1} twin boundary are in the height of 2 $d_{\left(10\overline{1}1\right)}$ and 4 $d_{\left(10\overline{1}1\right)}$ , respectively, and both of them have two types according to whether there are dislocations on the micro-steps. The twin boundary is interrupted by many micro-steps, which leads to a step-line distributed interfacial segregation. Moreover, the Ag tends to segregate to dislocation cores, which results in the interruption of interfacial segregation at the micro-steps with dislocations.

Warm rolling at temperatures ranging from 25 °C to 500 °C was conducted on the dual-phase heterostructured low-carbon steel to investigate the effect of deformation temperature on the structural refinement and mechanical properties. Defying our intuition, the grain size and strength of the rolled steels do not deteriorate with the increase in deformation temperature. Warm rolling at 300 °C produces a much finer lamellar structure and higher strength than steels rolled at both room temperature and elevated temperature. It is supposed that the enhanced interactions between carbon atoms and defects (interfaces and dislocations) at 300 °C promote dislocation accumulation and stabilize the nanostructure, thus helping with producing an extremely finer structure and higher strength than other temperatures.