Strain hardening of cold-rolled lean-alloyed metastable ferritic-austenitic stainless steels

Mechanical properties and strain hardening of two pilot-scale lean-alloyed ferritic-austenitic stainless steels having metastable austenite phase, present at 0.50 and 0.30 volume fractions, have been studied by means of tensile testing and nanoindentation. These ferritic-austenitic stainless steels have high strain-hardening capacity, due to the metastable austenite phase, which leads to an improved uniform elongation and higher tensile strength in comparison with most commercial lean duplex stainless steels. According to the results, even as low as 0.30 volume fraction of austenite seems efficient for achieving nearly 40% elongation. The austenite phase is initially the harder phase, and exhibits more strain hardening than the ferrite phase. The rate of strain hardening and the evolution of the martensite phase were found to depend on the loading direction: both are higher when strained in the rolling direction as compared to the transverse direction. Based on the mechanical testing, characterization of the microstructure by optical/electron microscopy, magnetic balance measurements and EBSD texture analysis, this anisotropy in mechanical properties of the cold-rolled metastable ferritic-austenitic stainless steels can be explained by the elongated dual-phase microstructure, fiber reinforcement effect of the harder austenite phase and the presence and interplay of rolling textures in the two phases.