ESSC & DUPLEX 2019

In recent years numerous studies have demonstrated that a short reversion annealing following cold rolling is an efficient method to refine the grain size of metastable austenitic stainless steels down to a micron-scale. Commercial grades such as EN 1.4310 (AISI 301) and EN 1.4318 (AISI 301LN), EN 1.4371 (AISI 201L) have been found suitable for the treatment. In addition to resistance heating of small samples, also induction heating of large sheets in a pilot plant has provided equal results. A cold rolling reduction as low as 32% has been shown to lead to considerable refinement of the grain size enhancing the yield strength and high-cycle fatigue strength to be more than double compared to those of the commercial EN 1.4318 steel. Elongation is only slightly decreased. In spite of higher strength, drawability is equal to that of the commercial annealed EN 1.4318. The paper gives an overview of the level of mechanical properties which can be achieved under conditions related to industrial processing and discuss the properties which should be further investigated to reveal the work-shop fabricability of these grades.