Corrosion Resistance Enhancement of AISI 304 Stainless Steel by Deep Rolling Treatment

Abstract

As one of severe plastic deformation (SPD) techniques, the deep rolling treatment was carried out after machining to enhance the surface integrity (microstructure, grain size, residual stress, etc.) of many materials. Re-crystallized surface layers containing submicron-scaled grains could be produced during deep rolling process due to severe plastic deformation. These ultra-fine grained materials showed improved mechanical properties (fatigue, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, etc.). In this work, deep rolling process was performed to enhance the corrosion behavior of Stainless Steel type AISI 304 in severe environments like seawater. Findings of this study depicts that deep rolling generates an ultra-fine grain structure, multi-directional mechanical twins, strain-induced martensite in the surface layers. In addition, the application of deep rolling produced high and deep compressive residual stress distributions. As a matter of fact, the corrosion rate was reduced by 53% for deep rolled sample comparatively to machined one. Thus, the enhancement of AISI 304 corrosion behavior results from microstructural changes, deformation-induced martensite and compressive residual stresses.