Tensile Deformation Behaviors of Metastable Austenitic Stainless Steels Studied by Neutron Diffraction

Tensile deformation behaviors of three austenitic stainless steels, JIS-SUS310S, 304 and 301L, were studied by static tensile tests and in situ neutron diffraction. In the mechanical properties obtained by the static tensile tests, the 304 and 301L steels showed better balance of tensile strength and uniform elongation than the 310S one because of TRIP effect. The angular dispersion neutron diffractions with a wavelength of 0.16 or 0.182 nm were performed during stepwise tensile testing by using a neutron diffractometer for residual stress analysis (RESA) at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency. The lattice plane strain, stress-induced martensite volume fraction, dislocation density and so on were estimated by the profile analysis as a function of applied stress. The change in lattice plane spacing for austenite indicated four deformation stages. In the comparison of lattice plane strain among the tested steels, a phase stress caused by the stress-induced martensite seems to overlap the intergranular stress of austenite phase. Judging from the results of profile analysis, the strain partitioning of austenite phase in metastable austenitic steels became larger with increasing of the volume fraction of stress-induced martensite during tensile deformation.