Nano-scale study of phase separation in ferrite of long term thermally aged Mo-bearing duplex stainless steels - Atom probe tomography and Monte Carlo simulation

Duplex stainless steels (DSS), used in primary circuit of Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR), are prone to thermal ageing at service temperature, typically between 286 and 323 C. degrees. This ageing is due to the ferrite decomposition via two kinds of phase transformations: spinodal decomposition into Fe rich α zones and Cr rich α' zones and precipitation of G-phase enriched in Ni, Si, Mn and Mo. It has been shown by atom probe tomography (APT) that the G-phase particles form at the interface between α and α' regions thereby demonstrating that α-α' decomposition and G-phase precipitation are highly dependent. The synergy between the two decomposition processes should be related to both the thermodynamics of the system and the diffusion mechanisms active during ageing. This can be studied by atomistic kinetic Monte Carlo (AKMC) with a model that can reproduce the phase transformations which take place in ferrite of duplex stainless steels. This paper presents the first simulations of the kinetics of spinodal decomposition and G-phase precipitation occurring in ferrite of duplex stainless steels. The kinetics was simulated using a simple but effective atomic kinetic Monte Carlo model in a ternary alloy. The simulations reproduced the α/α' spinodal structure with precipitates at the α/α' interface. The comparison of simulated results with experiments shows that the simulations quantitatively reproduce the kinetics of phase transformation and the synergy observed experimentally between the spinodal decomposition and G-phase precipitation: the time evolution of the wavelength of the spinodal decomposition and the radius of G-phase precipitates were quantitatively reproduced. The simulations endorse the assumption that G-phase precipitation mainly results from the rejection of G-formers from α and α' domains. By following the vacancy pathway during simulation, we show that coarsening of the G-phase precipitates must proceed via diffusion along the α/α' interface. We give an explanation for the absence of evolution of the effective time exponent even after more than 20 years of ageing and for the kinetic synergy between spinodal decomposition and G-phase precipitation. (authors)