Ferrite Quantification Methodologies for Duplex Stainless Steel

In order to quantify ferrite content, three techniques, XRD, ferritoscope and optical metallography, were applied to a duplex stainless steel UNS S3 1803 solution-treated for 30 min at 1,000, 1,100 and 1,200 degrees C, and then compared to equilibrium of phases predicted by ThermoCalc (R) simulation. As expected, the microstructure is composed only by austenite and ferrite phases, and ferrite content increases as the solution treatment temperature increases. The microstructure presents preferred grains orientation along the rolling directions even for a sample solution treated for 30 min at 1,200 degrees C. For all solution treatment temperatures, the ferrite volume fractions obtained by XRD measurements were higher than those achieved by the other two techniques and ThermoCalc (R) simulation, probably due to texturing effect of previous rolling process. Values obtained by quantitative metallography look more assertive as it is a direct measurement method but the ferritoscope technique should be considered mainly for in loco measurement.