Effect of Grain Size and Grain Orientation on Dislocations Structure in Tensile Strained TWIP Steel During Initial Stages of Deformation

The effects of grain size and grain orientation on substructure in Fe–31Mn–3Al–3Si TWIP steel at a true strain of 0.06 were investigated. The results of the TEM observations indicated that where the grain size was 18.4 µm, the dislocations structure showed orientation dependence so that the mixture of both planar and tangled dislocations structure can be found in the deformed structure before the mechanical twinning initiation. Regardless of the grain orientation, however, the dislocation entanglements were mainly observed in the case of 2.1 µm grain size. Additionally, the reason for the suppression of the mechanical twinning as a result of the grain refinement at higher strains was described by the change of dislocations structure during initial stages of deformation.