Stacking fault energy and magnetism in austenitic stainless steels

The stacking fault energies are used to illustrate the footprint of magnetism on the mechanical properties of Fe-Cr-Ni alloys forming the basis of austenitic stainless steels. We find that the usual chemical effects of alloying additions are accompanied by major magnetic effects, which stabilize the most common industrial alloy steels at normal service temperatures. We suggest that part of the uncertainties associated with the experimental data on the stacking fault energies are due to the strong concentration and temperature dependence originating from the persisting local magnetic moments.