Influence of pre-transformed martensite on work-hardening behavior of SUS 304 metastable austenitic stainless steel

The metastable austenite was transformed to martensite by prestrain tension of SUS304 stainless steel to study the influence of transformed martensite on its subsequent work-hardening behavior under the uniaxial tensile condition. The X-ray diffractometer (XRD) was employed to detect the transformed martensite. Results showed that the volume fraction of transformed martensite increases with increasing prestrain. The pre-transformed martensite in the microstructure remarkably affects the deformation behavior of the steel, and the strength increases and the elongation decreases. The work-hardening curve of prestrained specimens observably changes with true strain. The work-hardening exponent n of stainless steel decreases with the increase of pre-transformed martensite. The achievement is a significant contribution to the process design during pressing.