On the origin of deformation microstructures in austenitic stainless steel: Part I - Microstructures

A comprehensive characterization of room temperature deformation microstruc tures was carried out by transmission electron microscopy for ion irradiate d and deformed AISI 316LN austenitic stainless steel. Deformation microstru ctures were produced by a recently developed disk-bend test method and also by a uniaxial tensile test. Cross-slip was dramatically suppressed by the radiation-induced defects and slip occurred predominantly by planar glide o f Shockley partial dislocations. Deformed microstructures consisted of pile d-up dislocations, nanotwin layers, stacking faults, and defect-reduced dis location channel bands. Analyses revealed that all these features were diff erent manifestations of the same type of deformation band, namely a composi te of overlapping faulted layers produced by Shockley partial dislocations. (C) 2001 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All right s reserved.