Comparative Study on Hot Metal Flow Behaviour of Virgin and Rejuvenated Heat Treatment Creep Exhausted P91 Steel

This article reports on the comparative study of the hot deformation behaviour of virgin (steel A) and rejuvenated heat treatment creep-exhausted (steel B) P91 steels. Hot uniaxial compression tests were conducted on the two steels at a deformation temperature range of 900–1050 °C and a strain rate range of 0.01–10 s⁻¹ to a total strain of 0.6 using Gleeble^® 3500 equipment. The results showed that the flow stress largely depends on the deformation conditions. The flow stress for the two steels increased with an increase in strain rate at a given deformation temperature and vice versa. The flow stress–strain curves exhibited dynamic recovery as the softening mechanism. The material constants determined using Arrhenius constitutive equations were: the stress exponent, which was 5.76 for steel A and 6.67 for steel B; and the apparent activation energy, which was: 473.1 kJ mol⁻¹ for steel A and 564.5 kJmol⁻¹ for steel B. From these results, steel A exhibited better workability than steel B. Statistical parameters analyses showed that the flow stress for the two steels had a good correlation between the experimental and predicted data. Pearson’s correlation coefficient (R) was 0.97 for steel A and 0.98 for steel B. The average absolute relative error (AARE) values were 7.62% for steel A and 6.54% for steel B. This study shows that the Arrhenius equations can effectively describe the flow stress behaviour of P91 steel, and this method is applicable for industrial metalworking process.