ABSTRACT This study examined the effects of cold working and subsequent annealing treatment for a short time on the corrosion behavior of a lean duplex stainless steel (LDSS). The as-received sample was solution treated at 1100 °C for 1800 s and cold rolled. The cold deformation (75%) was followed by isochronic annealing at 900, 950, 1000, 1050 and 1100 °C for 180 s. The microstructural changes were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Vickers hardness, while corrosion behavior was investigated by cyclic potentiodynamic polarization technique and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in 3.5% NaCl solution at 22 ± 2 °C. After cyclic polarization, pits morphology was characterized by SEM. Cold rolling lowered lamellar spacing between the phases and increased hardness. Hardness at temperatures higher than 950 °C was equal to the 2304 LDSS solution treated. Although grain refinement is observed due to recrystallization, the corrosion resistance was not significantly improved. The highest pitting potential and charge transfer resistance were obtained after annealing at 1000 °C for 180 s. The pit distribution indicates that the corrosion behavior of the phases changed during the cold rolling and annealing treatment, and pitting was initiated preferentially in the α/γ boundaries and inside the α domains.

Duplex stainless steel (DSS) has been considered as an excellent alternative for applications where high corrosion resistance and high mechanical strength are required. Therefore, microstructure and properties of DSS remain topics of much interest. For this purpose, the effect of warm-rolling was studied in a duplex stainless steel. The focus of this work was 2205 which is one of the most useful type of DSS. Although evolution of microstructure, texture and tensile properties during warm rolling of DDS have been reported, there is no study on the effect of warm rolling on corrosion resistance of 2205 DSS. In this context, the objective of this work is to evaluate microstructure, texture and mechanical and corrosion properties of UNS S32205 DSS after warm rolling. The duplex stainless steel was warm-rolled at 600°C up to 60 and 80% thickness reduction and submitted to electrochemical tests. The electrochemical behaviour of warm-rolled 2205 in the chlorine ion environment was evaluated using cyclic potentiodynamic polarization (CPP) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The samples exhibited an excellent corrosion resistance in 3.5% NaCl solution. The study showed that the thermomechanical treatment used favoured the formation of the passive film and led to a greater polarization resistance. This behaviour is consistent with the pits density observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the crystallographic microtexture of the steel.

Samples of duplex stainless steel 32205 (standard duplex) and 32304 (lean duplex) were investigated in the as-received state, cold rolling (with thickness reduction of 64 % and 62 % respectively) and after annealing at 1055ºC for 20 s soaking. Crystallographic microtexture was obtained via Electron BackScatter Diffraction (EBSD) technique. The results showed that the crystallographic microtexture of ferrite phase in the as-received, cold rolled and annealed condition were more intense in alpha fiber=<011> // RD and tetha fiber. The austenite microtexture was shown to be, for all conditions, mainly composed by Brass component.

A comparison of the influence of microstructure and texture on mechanical behavior between the niobium-stabilized ferritic stainless steel type ASTM 430, 430Nb, and the niobium-titanium-stabilized ferritic stainless steel type ASTM 439 was performed. The two steels were supplied as cold rolled thin sheets and the annealing was interrupted in different temperatures aiming the characterization of the microstructure and texture in different stages of recrystallization using optical microscopy, Vickers microhardness and Electron Backscatter Diffraction. The annealed samples were tensile tested to determine the mechanical properties and undergone to Swift test to evaluate the drawability. The steel 430Nb showed smaller grain size and greater yield stress. The steel ASTM 439 presented higher normal anisotropy coefficient, R, and higher Limit Drawing Ratio due to greater proportion of γ fiber. These results are presented and discussed in terms of precipitates and crystallographic texture developed in the recrystallization of both steels.

Este artigo descreve o uso da técnica de difração de elétrons retroespalhados (EBSD) para caracterizar a microestrutura (especialmente a sua morfologia e constituição) do metal base (MB), zona termicamente afetada (ZTA) e zona fundida (ZF) de um aço inoxidável "lean" duplex (AILD). Esta técnica fornece vantagens devido à sua simplicidade de uso e maior densidade de informação em comparação com a obtida por técnicas tradicionais de caracterização como as microscopias óptica (MO), eletrônica de varredura (MEV) e eletrônica de transmissão (MET). O uso de EBSD juntamente com microscopia de orientação de imagem (OIM) para compreender as diferentes transformações de fase ferrita-austenita é discutido. Medidas de microdureza Vickers foram feitas e não foi achada nenhuma diferença significativa entre as diferentes zonas. A função distribuição de orientação dos grãos (FDO) mostrou que na há mudanças significativas na textura cristalográfica nas amostras após a solda. As vantagens do uso de microscopia eletrônica de varredura juntamente com EBSD para analisar a microestrutura e o desenvolvimento da textura são também discutidas.

This paper describes the electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) technique used to characterize the microstructure (especially the morphology and constitution) of the base metal (BM), the heat-affected zone (HAZ) and the fusion zone (FZ) on a lean duplex stainless steel (LDX). This technique provides advantages due to its simplicity of use and greater depth of information, thereby increasing the amount of information obtained by traditional characterization techniques such as optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The use of EBSD together with orientation imaging microscopy (OIM) as a tool to understand phase transformation paths and ferrite-austenite variant selection was discussed. Vickers microhardness measurements were performed and no significance difference between the different zones was found. Orientation distribution function (ODF) results show that there are no significant changes on the crystallographic texture of the samples after welding. The advantages of using SEM together with EBSD for microstructure analyzing and texture development were also discussed.

Steels containing high levels of Mn, Si and Al exhibit high plasticity when deformed, owing to twinning-induced plastitity (TWIP) and transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP) effects. In this study, we investigated the microstructural evolution of samples of samples of a 17%Mn steel subjected to war rolling at 700º and 800ºC. We also studied the effects of the microstructure of the steel samples on their mechanical behavior. Using a mathematic model the stacking fault energy of the steel was estimated to be 14.5 mJ/m². This value was indicative of a martensitic transformation. The presence of martensite and twinned austenite was verified using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) analyses. The presence of austenite and ε- and α'-martensites was confirmed using X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses and dilatometry. Increasing the rate of cold reduction resulted in the formation of a α'-martensite phase and a decrease in the volume fraction of the ε-martensite phase. The volume fractions of the various phases were measured by integrating the areas under the XRD peaks. The sample subjected to a cold-rolling reduction of 81% and a subsequent annealing treatment did not contain a α'-martensite phase, indicating that it was fully recrystallized. The Vickers microhardness of the samples increased with an increase in the cold-rolling reduction rate. However, the microhardness values of the cold-rolled samples decreased after the annealing treatment.

The cooling rate, density of stacking faults, austenite grain size, and temperature strongly influence the γfcc → εhcp → a'bcc martensite transformation in austenitic alloys. During cooling, austenitic Fe-Mn steels can partially transform to ε and α'martensites within a restricted chemical composition. Martensite formation will influence the mechanical behavior of the alloy. The microstructure evolution under three cooling rates of a hot-rolled austenitic steel, Fe-17.0Mn-0.06C (wt%), was analyzed by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy/electron backscatter diffraction. The volume fraction of martensite and austenite were measured by X-ray diffraction line profile analysis by directly comparing the as-cast alloy, alloy subjected to different cooling conditions, and this processed with hot rolling.