Texture inheritance of cold drawn pearlite steel wires after austenitization

In this paper, microstructure and mechanical properties of cold drawn pearlitic steel wires were investigated by combining SEM and XRD analysis with tensile testing. Experimental results show that the tensile strength of wires increases from 1250 MPa to 3280 MPa with increasing drawing strain of 3.2. When the strain is greater than 2.0, the rate of work hardening has increased rapidly. The original steel rods have a weak 〈110〉 texture. With the increase of the drawing strain, the orientation of 〈110〉 intensified and became dominant. The 〈110〉 texture became saturated when drawing strain reaches 2.0. In addition, for low strain (ε=1.1) pearlite wires, the intensity of 〈110〉 texture decreased sharply after austenitization at 820 °C for 5 min. With the increase of austenitization time, the intensity of 〈110〉 texture decreased continually, and eventually no dominant texture existed. For high strain (ε>1.6) steel wires, though the intensity of 〈110〉 texture decreased in the beginning, the 〈110〉 texture remained dominant after prolonged austenitization treatment. The observed texture inheritance can be exploited in the development of steel wires with unprecedented strength.