Formation of nano-grained structure in a 301 stainless steel using a repetitive thermo-mechanical treatment

In this work effects of the thermo-mechanical parameters were investigated in order to achieve nanocrystalline structure in the as-cast AISI 301 stainless steel. In order to get nanocrystalline structure the repetitive cold rolling and subsequent annealing were used. The cold rolling was carded out at temperatures of 0, -10 and -196 degrees C with strain rate of 0.5 s(-1) and reduction of 95%, while the annealing treatment was conducted at temperature 600 to 850 degrees C for 0.5 to 50 min. The results showed that the nanocrystalline austenitic structure with grain size of about 30-40 nm was obtained by annealing at 850 degrees C for 0.5 min after totally 95% cold rolling reduction at -10 degrees C. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.