Strip casting and thin slab casting are new near net-shape technologies, which have successfully emerged in steels because of significant energy savings, substantial reduction in green house gas emissions and cost benefits. Extensive research was undertaken aimed at integrating microalloying technology with near net-shape casting technology, using a base chemistry of low carbon (0.03 wt%) and high niobium (up to 0.1%wt), which is a well established chemistry for higher grade pipeline steels.In the present contribution, physically-based modelling is used to optimize the Mn content and the processing conditions for the application of strain-accumulation in the new steels. The results of the modelling confirm the distinct advantage of the low Mn chemistry for the application of plate rolling which is carried out in the high temperature window using small to medium deformation passes. The high Mn chemistry is found to be more advantageous when the rolling is carried out in the low temperature window and using large pass reductions. This result is in agreement with recent rolling simulations and mill trials which show that the high Mn chemistry is superior to the low Mn chemistry for the application of near net-shape strip-rolling.KEY WORDS: strip-rolling; effect of Mn; recrystallization; recovery; precipitation; solute-drag; process optimization.The predictive capability of the physically-based approach makes it possible to explore material behaviour over short interpass times which are difficult to access experimentally. We are thus able to optimize, to a first order, the steel chemistry and processing conditions for the strip-rolling of high Nb steels. Further optimization of the chemistry and processing conditions requires experimental inputs that would allow for the verification and improvement of the model. Thus, an important theme of the present contribution is the need to use physically-based modelling in parallel with carefully designed experiments.We start by reviewing the existing experimental observations on the effect of Mn on precipitation and recrystallization (Sec. 2). We then present a physically-based model for the microstructural evolution of hot-rolled austenite during the interpass time (Sec. 3). In Sec. 4, the model is used to analyze the effect of Mn content on the softening kinetics for various processing conditions (i.e. various combinations of temperature and strain). The industrial implications of the model are considered in Sec. 5. Table 1 identifies the base chemistry of the steels being investigated for the application of strain-accumulation in the low temperature window. As mentioned earlier, the low carbon design is based on the need to achieve a very homogenous solid-state microstructure even with high alloying addition of substitutional solutes like Mn and Nb. The contents of N and Ti are based on quantitative modelling of the thermodynamic potential for the precipitation of Ti-Nb carbo-nitrides. These models 5,6) show a distinct advantage of low nitrogen (0.003 wt%) design. The tita...