Design of a novel austenitising bending process in forming characteristics of high-strength quenched and micro-alloyed steel: Experiment and simulation

•A novel designed austenitising bending process was realised on a thermomechanical simulator.•Integrated effects of SNL, martensite packet, PA grain, DRV and DRX were responsible for the strength gradient.•Parent grain reconstruction and martensite variants can be achieved a more effective technique.•The high consistency between simulation and experiments means valuable reference of the current study to simulate rail clip forming process.