Tensile Properties, Ferrite Contents, and Specimen Heating of Stainless Steels in Cryogenic Gas Tests

We performed tensile tests at cryogenic temperatures below 77 K and in helium gas environment for SUS 304L and SUS 316L in order to obtain basic data of mechanical properties of the materials for liquid hydrogen tank service. We evaluate tensile curves, tensile properties, ferrite contents, mode of deformation and/or fracture, and specimen heating during the testing at 4 to 77 K. For both SUS 304L and 316L, tensile strength shows a small peak around 10 K, and specimen heating decreases above 30 K. The volume fraction of α-phase increases continuously up to 70 % with plastic strain, at approximately 15 % plastic strain for 304L and up to 35 % for 316L. There was almost no clear influence of testing temperature on strain-induced martensitic transformation at the cryogenic temperatures