Reverse aging of pearlitic carbon steel wire rod

ABSTRACT High carbon steels are employed for the production of critical components, such as ropes, cables and springs. After hot rolling, their microstructure is controlled by Stelmor cooling, since they are often subjected to strong drawing operations. The as-rolled deformability is a basic property to prevent damages in the following plastic deformation. In the industrial world, it is known that their deformability improves significantly after a storage of a certain time, ranging from some days up to 15–20 days. In this experimental work, the deformability of a high carbon steel was investigated after different storage times varying the wire rod diameter. The percentage reduction of area (ROA) increased after some days until a stable value was reached after about 7–15 days depending on the considered diameter. The fracture surfaces of the aged specimens were analysed by SEM.