In order to analyze the influence of variant selection and special crystal plane misorientation distribution of low carbon bainite steel (15Cr12CuSiMoMn) on its mechanical properties, and the correlation between variant selection and crystal plane misorientation, the experimental steel was subjected to isothermal quenching heat treatment at a specified temperature after fully austenitizing, and then the evolution law of variant selection and the distribution law of special crystallographic plane misorientation during isothermal transition were analyzed and characterized. The results show that the {100} standard polar diagram is basically consistent with the {100} polar diagram of the experimental steel. The orientation relationship between the bainite variant and the parent austenite conforms to the K-S relationship. With the increase of isothermal quenching temperature, the bainite transformation rate is accelerated, and the ability of variant selection is reduced. At the same time, the content of HAGBs (45—65°) and LAGBs (2—15°) is decreased. After isothermal quenching for 60 min, it is found that the number of variant pairs V1/ V2, V1/ V3, V1/ V5 in the same CP group increases by 2.4%, 15%, 1.1% in 320 ℃ compared with 340 ℃, and the bainite variant in the same CP group can increase the LAGBs. After isothermal quenching at 320 ℃, the experimental steel has large overall interfacial misorientation, cleavage plane (100) misorientation and slip plane (110) misorientation. The misorientation of the overall plane ranges from 3.2°to 62.5°, the misorientation of the cleavage plane (100) ranges from 6.9° to 47.8°, and the misorientation of the slip plane (110) ranges from 1° to 29.2°. By controlling the distribution and content of bainite variants, which affects the distribution range of the effective cleavage surface orientation difference (100) and the slip surface orientation difference (110), increasing the range of special crystal plane orientation difference is conducive to optimizing the bainite structure. © 2024 Cailiao Daobaoshe/ Materials Review. All rights reserved.