An Overview of Dual-Phase Steels: Advances in Microstructure-Oriented Processing and Micromechanically Guided Design

TLDR

Dual‑phase steel is a leading advanced high‑strength steel that enables weight‑reduced automotive parts through lean alloying and simple thermomechanical processing, yet its complex ferrite‑martensite microstructure still poses open scientific questions despite recent experimental and simulation advances. The review aims to detail recent advances in microstructure evolution, micromechanical characterization, and mechanical simulation of DP steels to identify unresolved issues and guide future research. It examines microstructure evolution during processing, experimental micromechanical characterization, and mechanical behavior simulation of DP steels.

Abstract

Dual-phase (DP) steel is the flagship of advanced high-strength steels, which were the first among various candidate alloy systems to find application in weight-reduced automotive components. On the one hand, this is a metallurgical success story: Lean alloying and simple thermomechanical treatment enable use of less material to accomplish more performance while complying with demanding environmental and economic constraints. On the other hand, the enormous literature on DP steels demonstrates the immense complexity of microstructure physics in multiphase alloys: Roughly 50 years after the first reports on ferrite-martensite steels, there are still various open scientific questions. Fortunately, the last decades witnessed enormous advances in the development of enabling experimental and simulation techniques, significantly improving the understanding of DP steels. This review provides a detailed account of these improvements, focusing specifically on (a) microstructure evolution during processing, (b) experimental characterization of micromechanical behavior, and (c) the simulation of mechanical behavior, to highlight the critical unresolved issues and to guide future research efforts.