Papers by Author: Jean Bernard Vogt

Abstract: The kinetics of short crack growth during cycling has been studied in a superduplex stainless steel in aged condition. After few cycles, slip lines appear distributed in both phases but the preferred phase for microcrack nucleation is the ferrite. Contrary to the exponential behavior observed in the as-received material, the growth rate of microcracks in aged condition follows a rather linear law. Internal dislocation structures were studied in the near surface region; microbands that sometimes extend over several grains were found at approximately 45º of the tensile axis on ferrite grains. The origin of the microbands has been analyzed and correlated with the microcracks.

Abstract: By atomic force microscopy, the plastic deformation marks resulting from monotonic and cyclic plastic deformation were analysed to study the plasticity in each phase of Duplex Stainless Steels. In austenite, straight slip bands were observed after monotonic loading. These straight slip bands seem to serve as fatigue extrusion nucleation sites, which are the marks of the accommodation of the cyclic plasticity by the austenite. In ferrite, after monotonic loading, slip bands, could be classified into two different groups depending on whether they result from the bulk activities of ferrite or whether their formation is assisted by the plastic deformation of austenite. It was found that the crystallographic misorientation based on a Kurdjomov-Sachs relationship is the factor controlling one or the other type. After the first 5 loading cycles, the ferrite presents only monotonic plastic marks. This suggests no direct contribution of the ferrite to the accommodation of the cyclic plasticity.

Abstract: The paper analyzes the role of microstructure on the low cycle fatigue behaviour of duplex stainless steels. The alloys are investigated in their as received condition and after ageing at 475°C. The fatigue resistance and the cyclic accommodation of these DSS are strongly controlled by the volume fraction of α and γ "phases which is related to the chemical composition in particular nitrogen. It is shown that DSS with a high fraction of austenite present a good combination of fatigue resistance and cyclic softening especially in the aged condition. The mutual interaction between ferrite and austenite referred to load transfer is beneficial for increasing the fatigue resistance. Alloying with nitrogen appears to be a promising way to master an optimised microstructure leading to high mechanical resistant DSS.