Microstructure Evolution and Flow Stress Model of a 20Mn5 Hollow Steel Ingot during Hot Compression

20Mn5 steel is widely used in the manufacture of heavy hydro-generator shaft due to its good performance of strength, toughness and wear resistance. However, the hot deformation and recrystallization behaviors of 20Mn5 steel compressed under high temperature were not studied. In this study, the hot compression experiments under temperatures of 850–1200 °C and strain rates of 0.01/s–1/s are conducted using Gleeble thermal and mechanical simulation machine. And the flow stress curves and microstructure after hot compression are obtained. Effects of temperature and strain rate on microstructure are analyzed. Based on the classical stress-dislocation relation and the kinetics of dynamic recrystallization, a two-stage constitutive model is developed to predict the flow stress of 20Mn5 steel. Comparisons between experimental flow stress and predicted flow stress show that the predicted flow stress values are in good agreement with the experimental flow stress values, which indicates that the proposed constitutive model is reliable and can be used for numerical simulation of hot forging of 20Mn5 hollow steel ingot.