Effects of Cold Rolling and Strain-Induced Martensite Formation in a SAF 2205 Duplex Stainless Steel

Duplex stainless steels (DSSs) are biphasic steels having a ferritic-austenitic microstructure that allows them to combine good mechanical and corrosion-resistance properties. However, these steels are sensitive to microstructural modifications, such as ferrite decomposition at high temperatures and the possibility of strain-induced martensite (SIM) formation from cold-worked austenite, which can significantly alter their interesting features. In the present work, the effects of cold rolling on the developed microstructural features in a cold-rolled SAF 2205 DSS and the onset of martensitic transformation are discussed. The material was deformed at room temperature from 3 to 85 pct thickness reduction, and several characterization techniques (scanning and transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, hardness measurements, and time-of-flight-neutron diffraction) were employed in order to fully describe the microstructural behavior of the steel. Despite the low stacking fault energy of DSS austenite, which contributed to SIM formation, the steel was found to be more stable than other stainless steel grades, such as AISI 304L. Rolling textures were similar to those pertaining to single-phase materials, but the presence of the biphasic (Duplex) microstructure imposed deformation constraints that affected the developed microstructural features, owing to phases interactions. Moreover, even if an intensification of the strain field in austenite was revealed, retarded SIM transformation kinetics and lower martensite amounts with respect to AISI 304L were observed.