Manufacturing and forging issues encountered while upscaling 1.3C30Mn10Al-austenitic and 0.65C12Mn-duplex low-density steels

Difficulties found when manufacturing and forging two low density steels in different scales are described in this work. Austenitic and duplex low-density steels have attracted a lot of interest due to their good combination of mechanical properties and density reduction. In this work, the fabrication of 1.3 C30Mn10Al austenitic low-density steel and 0.65 C12Mn10Al duplex low-density steel have been studied. The scaling up of the manufacturing process from 1 Kg to 35 Kg ingots of both materials and the subsequent hot forging of the ingots is described, showing the difficulties encountered during the production and transformation of these steels. Only the small ingots were successfully forged, but not the larger ones, showing the important differences in the forging properties depending on the geometry and dimensions of the final part to be forged, and the homogenization temperatures. The possible causes of this scale dependence are proposed from the experimental results obtained, as well as from the hot axial compression tests and the thermodynamic simulations carried out.