Effect of the Temperature in the Mechanical Properties of Austenite, Ferrite and Sigma Phases of Duplex Stainless Steels Using Hardness, Microhardness and Nanoindentation Techniques

The aim of this work is to study the hardness of the ferrite, austenite and sigma phases of a UNS S32760 superduplex stainless steel submitted to different thermal treatments, thus leading to different percentages of the mentioned phases. A comparative study has been performed in order to evaluate the resulting mechanical properties of these phases by using hardness, microhardness and nanoindentation techniques. In addition, optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) have been also used to identify their presence and distribution. Finally, the experimental results have shown that the resulting hardness values were increased as a function of a longer heat treatment duration which it is associated to the formation of a higher percentage of the sigma phase. However, nanoindentation hardness measurements of this sigma phase showed lower values than expected, being a combination of two main factors, namely the complexity of the sigma phase structure as well as the surface finish (roughness).