Investigation of the grain growth evolution in the AISI 304H austenitic stainless steel
Rodrigo Pinto de Siqueira1; José Flávio Silveira Feiteira1; Vitor Brandão de Melo1; Jefferson Fabrício Cardoso Lins1; Dionísio José R. da Costa1
1 Fluminense Federal University
doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-0606
Resumo
The austenitic stainless steels usually present an excellent combination of corrosion resistance and mechanical properties such as ductility in the annealed condition and high yield strength after cold deformation. Solution annealing in the AISI 304H is recommended before deformation process in order to improve ductility. However, long annealing during solution annealing can cause grain growth (GG) or abnormal grain growth (AGG) in the AISI 304H. In these cases, ductility is strongly decreased. Therefore, GG or AGG must be avoided during solution annealing. In this article, grain growth during solution annealing of the AISI 304H samples was determined. Samples of the AISI 304H were annealed at 1100°C for solution-annealing times varying from 15 min to 180 min. The results show that AGG took place for samples annealed at 1100°C for 30 min. In this temperature, grain size is about 70 ± 10 m. After annealing solution at 1100°C for 180 min, grain size reached 130 ± 20 m. In summary, the results shown that solution annealing at 1100°C even for relatively short annealing promotes the prompt increase of the grain size.
Palavras-chave: AISI 304H; austenitic stainless steel; solution annealing; grain growth; abnormal grain growth