Hot deformation behavior and constitutive modeling of Q345E alloy steel under hot compression

摘要

Q345E as one of typical low alloy steels is widely used in manufacturing basic components in many fields because of its eminent formability under elevated temperature. In this work, the deformation behavior of Q345 E steel was investigated by hot compression experiments on Gleeble-3500 thermo-mechanical simulator with the temperature ranging from 850 °C to 1150 °C and strain rate ranging from 0.01 s^(-1) to 10 s^(-1). The experimental results indicate that dynamic softening of Q345 E benefits from increasing deformation temperature and decreasing strain rate. The mathematical relationship between dynamic softening degree and deformation conditions is established to predict the dynamic softening degree quantitatively, which is further proved by some optical microstructures of Q345 E. In addition, the experimental results also reveal that the stress level decreases with increasing deformation temperature and decreasing strain rate. The constitutive equation for flow stress of Q345 E is formulated by Arrihenius equation and the modified Zener-Hollomon parameter considering the compensation of both strain and strain rate. The flow stress values predicted by the constitutive equation agree well with the experimental values, realizing the accurate prediction of the flow stress of Q345 E steel under hot deformation.