Microstructure Refinement and Mechanical Properties of 304 Stainless Steel by Repetitive Thermomechanical Processing

Abstract

Repetitive thermomechanical processing (TMP) was applied for evaluating the effect of strain-induced α′-martensite transformation and reversion annealing on microstructure refinement and mechanical properties of 304 austenitic stainless steel. The first TMP scheme consisted of four cycles of tensile deformation to strain of 0.4, while the second TMP scheme applied two cycles of tensile straining to 0.6. For both schemes, tensile tests were conducted at 173 K (− 100 °C) followed by 5-minute annealing at 1073 K (800 °C). The volume fraction of α′-martensite in deformed samples increased with increasing cycles, reaching a maximum of 98 vol pct. Examination of annealed microstructure by electron backscattered diffraction indicated that increasing strain and/or number of cycles resulted in stronger reversion to austenite with finer grain size of 1 μm. Yet, increasing strain reduced the formation of Σ3 boundaries. The annealing textures generally show reversion of α′-martensite texture components to the austenite texture of brass and copper orientations. The increase in strain and/or number of cycles resulted in stronger intensity of copper orientation, accompanied by the formation of recrystallization texture components of Goss, cube, and rotated cube. The reduction in grain size with increasing cycles caused an increase in yield strength. It also resulted in an increase in strain hardening rate during deformation due to the increase in the formation of α′-martensite. The increase in strain hardening rate occurred in two consecutive stages, marked as stages II and III. The strain hardening in stage II is due to the formation of α′-martensite from either austenite or e-martensite, while the stage-III strain hardening is attributed to the necessity to break the α′-martensite-banded structure for forming block-type martensite at high strains.