P. Mullner et al., ON THE EFFECT OF NITROGEN ON THE DISLOCATION-STRUCTURE OF AUSTENITIC STAINLESS-STEEL, Materials science & engineering. A, Structural materials: properties, microstructure and processing, 164(1-2), 1993, pp. 164-169
The strengthening and work hardening characteristics of high nitrogen
austenitic steel have been investigated by TEM in order to explain the
outstanding mechanical properties, which are very high yield strength
and good toughness. It is shown that plastic deformation of those ste
els always occurs by a combination of planar glide and mechanical twin
ning. However, the critical stress/strain conditions for the onset of
mechanical twinning depend strongly on the actual nitrogen content. Sp
ecifically, as the nitrogen content is increased, the onset of deforma
tion twinning is shifted to lower strains and higher stresses, i.e. th
e more important becomes the contribution of deformation twinning to t
he total strain. The observed behaviour is explained by the influence
of nitrogen on internal friction and stacking fault energy. It is conc
luded that the high yield strength of cold worked nitrogen-bearing ste
el is essentially due to tight stackings of twins and stacking faults.
Apart from regular structure evolution, inhomogeneous structures are
observed, which can be explained in terms of texture formation and the
dynamic properties of stacking faults under stress.