Papers by Keyword: High Nitrogen Stainless Steel

Abstract: High cycle fatigue behaviors of 0Cr21Mn17Mo2N0.83 high nitrogen stainless steels at forged and solid solution state were investigated. High cycle fatigue tests were carried out up to 10⁷cycles at a stress ratio R=0.1 and frequency of 70Hz on specimens using a high frequency fatigue machine. Fatigue fracture surfaces of specimens that in the high cycle fatigue tests were observed using a scanning electron microscope for revealing the micro-mechanisms of fatigue crack initiation and propagation. The results showed that the fatigue limit of test alloys at room temperature is 865.25 MPa (as-forged alloy) and 736.10MPa (solid solution alloy), respectively. The micro-fatigue fracture surface of the test alloys included three representative regions. These regions are fatigue initiation area, fatigue crack propagation area and fatigue fracture area. Fatigue cracks of the test alloys initiate principally at the precipitates, inclusion or uneven stress concentration sites of alloy surface, and propagate along the grain boundary. The fatigue striations of fatigue crack propagation area are very clear. The fatigue fracture of test specimens show the rupture characteristics of quasi cleavage and dimple fracture. The room temperature fatigue properties of as-forged alloy are generally higher than that of the solid solution high nitrogen stainless steel according to the S-N curves fitting results.

Abstract: Austenitic stainless steels are extensively used as structural materials for various aerospace systems. Nitrogen containing stainless steels have special role due to their austenite stabilization tendency down to subzero temperatures, improved strength and resistance to sensitization. Primary processing of nitrogen containing cryogenic grade stainless steel 202 has been carried out through two different melting routes viz. (1). conventional melt route of electric arc furnace (EAF) melting followed by vacuum oxygen decarburization (VOD) & vacuum degassing (VD) and other one through (2). vacuum induction melting (VIM) followed by ESR. Chemical analysis and macrostructure analysis was carried out on the samples drawn from these billets. Homogenization and thermomechanical processing parameters were selected and the same were followed for the ingots made through both the melt routes. Mechanical properties evaluation (including tensile properties at subzero temperature of 77K) and micro structure characterization of the products realised from all the two melt routes were carried out. It is observed that, both the melt routes could result in achieving the required aerospace quality of alloy with respect to the chemical composition, metallurgical and mechanical properties. This paper confirms that any of the melt routes studied herein can be adopted according to availability of the facilities. The process development and characterization of the steels processed by conventional EAF+ VD & VOD and VIM+ESR melt routes is presented in this paper.

Abstract: Austenitic stainless steels have received much attention in recent years due to their excellent combination of corrosion, mechanical and wear properties. They are finding wide applications in chemical, power, oil, refinery, biomedical, marine sectors and other industries where both good mechanical properties and excellent corrosion and wear resistances are demanded. In the spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plants and waste storage and processing plants involving nitric acid as the main process medium, type 304L stainless steels (SS) are employed as work horse materials for manufacturing more than 90% of the plant components. Though these alloys form a protective Cr₂O₃ passive film over the surface in nitric acid under plant operating conditions, they undergo various types of corrosion failures in service. Welding and other metallurgical parameters including alloying elements, cold working, heat treatment etc. degrade the performance of the alloy in service. For qualifying the alloy for plant applications, ASTM A262 practice A and C are currently employed, however, long term performance under simulated plant operating conditions is necessary to understand the failure modes and life prediction of components. Today, nitrogen represents an economically, environmentally, attractive and versatile alloying element to steels and stainless steels. The beneficial effect of nitrogen alloying in stainless steels are manifolds, including solid solution strengthening, precipitation effects, phase control and corrosion and wear resistances. Recent years have seen a rapid development of these alloys with improved properties owing to advances in alloy processing technologies. The objective of the lecture is to bring out the various corrosion issues in reprocessing plants, short term laboratory versus long term field corrosion data, modeling for life prediction, effect of redox ions, nitrogen alloying, welding and corrosion damage, etc. and highlight the remedial actions to overcome the shortcomings due to corrosion issues.

Abstract: Currently austenitic stainless steels, cobalt-chromium alloys and titanium alloys are used in body implants. As per ISO 5832-1, Cr-Ni-Mo alloy 316L with minimum 13% nickel is widely used for body implants. ASTM standard F 2229-07 also permits nitrogen strengthened essentially Ni-free Cr-Mn-Mo alloy (UNS S 29108) for this purpose. Nitrogen as austenite stabilizer is able to substitute nickel. It serves the dual purpose of increasing the strength as well as pitting corrosion resistance. This paper compares the corrosion behaviour of these two grades. Cyclic potentiodynamic tests were carried as per ASTM F2129 in Simulated Body Fluids (SBFs) like Ringers, Hanks and Phosphaste Buffer Saline solution at 37 °C, which corresponds to the human body temperature. The pitting potential was significantly higher for Ni free grade S29108 as compared to 316L. In addition, re-passivation potential of the S 29108 was also far superior than 316L. The reverse scan indicated that the breakdown of the passive film was not reached in S 29108, whereas a hysteresis loop was observed in 316L. The strength of annealed S 29108 is far superior and meets the property requirement of ISO 5832-1 for 316L under cold rolled conditions. Thus this alloy could replace annealed as well as cold rolled 316L as per ISO 5832-1. This promising alloy has an added advantage of being significantly cheaper as compared to 316L and other Ti, Co based alloys to enable cost effective medical care to common man. Keywords: High nitrogen stainless steel, 316L, Bio-Implants, Potentio-dynamic tests.

Abstract: High nitrogen containing austenitic stainless steel X8CrMnN18-18 exhibits attractive combination of high strength, toughness and corrosion resistance.This grade containing more than 5000 ppm of nitrogen was produced commercially through EAF-AOD-LRF-CC-Steckel mill route and its microstructure and mechanical properties were studied. Excellent combination of strength,ductility and toughness is achieved in the entire range of 6mm to 50mm thick hot rolled plates. Uniaxial compression tests were carried out to understand the hot deformation behavior by varying temperature and strain rate. Softening behavior during deformation was analyzed from flow stress strain curves and microstructural analysis. Dynamic recrystallization (DRX) behavior of the material was observed during thermo mechanical processing. Critical strain related to DRX and Avrami kinetics of DRX was calculated by analyzing the flow curve data. Microstructural characterization was done by optical microscopy and EBSD analysis. Extensive grain refinement can be achieved by thermo-mechanical processing controlled by DRX. Keywords: High nitrogen stainless steel, Strength and toughness, DRX, Grain refinement, TMCP

Abstract: The semiconducting property of passive films formed on Alloy 1 (18Cr-2Mo-1N)], Alloy 2 (17.5Cr-3Mo-0.5N)] and Alloy 3 (Type 316 SS) were studied by using the Mott-Schottky (M-S) approach in 3.5 wt. % NaCl solution of pH 2, 7 and 12. The M-S analysis shows that the film acts as n - type and p - type semiconductors across the potential range. The donor density of Alloy 1 has been found to be lower by about 31 %, 11 % and 6 % as compared to that of Alloy 2 at pH 2, 7 and 12 respectively. However; Alloy 3 has higher donor density 44 %, 27 % and 30 % in comparison with Alloy 1. The donor density of Alloy 3 found to be greater about 21 %, 18 % and 25 % to the Alloy 2 at pH 2, 7 and 12 respectively. These results indicate that the sensitivity of electrolyte composition and the presence of alloying elements like nitrogen and nickel on the donor density of passive film. High nitrogen stainless steels exhibited a lower donor density that corresponds to good protectiveness, more stable passive film which is in agreement with a low passive current density (i_pass), higher pitting potential (E_pit) and polarization resistance (R_p).

Abstract: Dynamic recrystallization was studied for the stainless steels with nitrogen contents of 0.56% to 1.08% during hot deformation at temperatures of 900~1200 with strain rates ranging from 0.003 to 42 s^-1. It was found that flow stress could increase remarkably with increasing nitrogen content. Flow curves during the deformation by 0.1~42/s at temperatures of 900~1200°C show a single peak, indicating the occurrence of dynamic recrystallization during deformation. The peak strain seems to decrease with increasing N content, suggesting that higher content of N facilitates dynamic recrystallization. The quenched microstructures were analyzed by optical microscopy, EBSD and TEM. The recrystallized grain sizes on the quenched specimens were measured and its dependence on temperature and strain rate was analyzed. At high temperature, continuously dynamically recrystallized microstructures were observed; whilst at low temperature, necklace-like partially recrystallized microstructures were found. Key words: High nitrogen stainless steel; dynamic recrystallization; stress-strain curves

Abstract: High nitrogen stainless steels with excellent mechanical and corrosion resistance properties is focused on to develop a new class of engineering material. The manufacture process of high nitrogen stainless steels under high nitrogen pressure is complicated. There are some theoretical problems to be solved for large scale melting and cast high nitrogen stainless steels. The thermodynamic calculation models of nitrogen solubility in the liquid phase, δ ferrite phase and γ austenitic phase built can well predict the nitrogen solubility and analyze the effect of temperature, alloy components and nitrogen pressure on the nitrogen solubility. The minimum nitrogen pressure for preventing the nitrogen porosity formation has been calculated by the micro-segregation. By the analysis nitrogen behavior of melting and cast high nitrogen stainless steels, it is possible to produce high nitrogen stainless steels in a large scale in China.

Abstract: High nitrogen nanostructured Fe-17Cr-11Mn-3Mo stainless steel powders were produced by high energy ball milling under a nitrogen atmosphere. It was found with increasing the milling time, the nitrogen contents of the powder mixtures increase linearly up to 1.98 wt pct after 96h, and a linear regression equation, WN = 0.19357 + 0.01887t , has been further established. In addition, with the increased milling time, the crystallite sizes and particle sizes of the powders decrease continuously, the lattice strains and sphericity of the powders increase gradually. After milling 60h, the high nitrogen nanocrystalline stainless steel powders with a fine particle size range of 5~10μm, excellent sphericity and uniform components can be obtained, whose crystallite size is about 5.0nm and lattice strain is about 1.0%. The powders milled for 60h was compacted using spark plasma sintering process at different temperatures. It is found that a fully austenitic high nitrogen stainless steel with almost full densification can be obtained by SPS at 1000°C, whose nitrogen content is 0.82 wt pct.

Abstract: Nitrogen alloying in steel may greatly increase the strength and corrosion resistance of the material. This paper introduced some research results of high nitrogen stainless steel (HNS) investigation via PM process. Nickel free high nitrogen stainless steels (17Cr12Mn2MoN) and superaustenitic high nitrogen stainless steels (28Cr6Mn2/6Mo10/20NiN) were investigated via gas atomization and HIP processes. Nitrogen alloying behavior during atomization and consolidation processes was investigated. Powders with nitrogen content up to 1% were manufactured by gas atomization process. Nickel free high nitrogen stainless steels with nitrogen up to 0.6% exhibits high strength and ductility at as-HIPed and solution annealed state, and superaustenitic HNS with nitrogen content up to 1% showed very high strength and good ductility at solution annealed state, with b at 1100 MPa, s at 810 MPa and elongation of 43%. PM HNS exhibited excellent corrosion resistance.