Nanograined/Ultrafine-Grained Structure and Tensile Deformation Behavior of Shear Phase Reversion-Induced 301 Austenitic Stainless Steel

We describe here an electron microscopy study of shear reversion-induced nanograined/ultrafine-grained (NG/UFG) structure and evolution of tensile strained microstructure in metastable type 301 austenitic stainless steel. The NG/UFG structure with grain size in the range of 200 to 500 nm was obtained by severe cold deformation and controlled annealing in the narrow temperature range of 973 to 1073 K (700 to 800 A degrees C). The different stages of annealing involve the following: (a) transformation of strain-induced martensite to highly dislocated lath-type austenite, (b) formation of dislocation-cell structure and transformation to recovered austenite structure with defect-free subgrains, and (c) coalescence of subgrains to form a NG/UFG structure concomitant with a completely recrystallized structure, and consistent with martensitic shear-type phase reversion mechanism. The optimized cold working and annealing treatment resulted in NG/UFG material with a high yield strength (similar to 1000 MPa) and high ductility (similar to 30 pct) combination. Multiple deformation mechanisms were identified from postmortem electron microscopy examination of tensile strained NG/UFG 301 austenitic stainless steel and include dislocation glide and twinning. The evidence of heterogeneous nucleation of overlapping stacking faults and partial dislocations points toward deformation.