Increasing strain rate generally lowers the uniform elongation,
as shown in Fig. 4. As DP steel consists of soft ferrite
grains and hard martensite islands, the latter deform mainly
in an elastic way. The plastic deformation is thus conducted
mostly in the ferrite matrix, giving a similar variation trend
with strain rate as that of a rephosphorized steel with single
ferrite phase at a given temperature [9].
Interestingly, better uniform ductility at −60 ◦C especially
under the low strain rate 10−4 s−1 is observed. There are two
possible reasons for this. In practice, the martensite reaction
can never be complete, i.e., a small amount of retained
austenite always remains untransformed, as shown in Fig. 1.
It is metastable and has a tendency to convert to martensite
(M) by plastic deformation [13], resulting in enhanced work
hardening ability. The necking is thus suppressed and the uniform
ductility is enhanced. The deformation temperature is a
critical factor which determines the extent of the transformation.
It has been observed that in the temperature range −53
to +187 ◦C the stability of the retained austenite is increased
with testing temperature in a vanadium containing dual phase
steel [14]. It should be noticed thatthis improvementis limited
to low strain rates at −60 ◦C, because martensite transformation
is suppressed at higher strain rate. It has been reported
that even a moderate strain rate of 10−2 s−1 suppresses martensite
transformation due to heating of the samples [15]. The
second reason is the strain induced mechanical twinning of
ferrite at low temperature, leading to an increase in strain
hardening rate and consequently enhanced uniform ductility