Modeling the evolution of strength during wire drawing

Extensive plastic deformation during wire drawing is commonly used to produce steel wires with very high strengths. Typically these steels are eutectoid and hypereutectoid steels and drawing strains up to 4 are used during processing. The resulting materials can have tensile strengths in excess of 4000 MPa. The evolution of microstructure and the strengthening mechanisms resulting from wire drawing have been studied for eutectoid and hypereutectoid steels. Strength has been shown to be a function of pearlite colony size, interlamellar spacing and the size of the stable dislocation cells that are produced during wire drawing. The results have been used to model the evolution of strength during wire drawing. Model predictions for the evolution of tensile strength with drawing strain show excellent agreement with data derived from a number of eutectoid and hyperectectoid steels as a function of drawing strain.