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Title: Effects of retained austenite on the tensile properties and toughness of ultra-high strength martensitic precipitation hardened stainless steels. Final technical report, 1 April 1997--31 March 1998

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:350561

The purpose of this work was to assess the effects of the amount of retained austenite content on the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature of martensitic precipitation strengthened stainless steels for four different precipitation strengthening systems, one utilizing NiTi strengthening and three utilizing R-phase strengthening. The retained austenite contents in the four systems were varied by varying composition. The austenite content in the NiTi strengthened system was varied by varying the chromium content and the austenite content in the R-phase strengthened Systems was varied by varying the nickel content. The room temperature toughness levels of the NiTi strengthened system were quite low and it was decided not to pursue this system further. The three R-phase strengthened systems had sufficient room temperature toughness and strength to be of further interest. Of these three systems the primary focus was on the 12Cr/12Co/5Mo system. In this system four alloys, identical except for variations in nickel content, were the primary focus of the work. These alloys achieved, on tempering at 5250 C for 3.16 hours, yield strengths on the order of 210 ksi and ultimate tensile strengths of 235 ksi. The effect of test temperature on the Charpy impact energy was investigated for two tempering temperatures for these four alloys. It was found for both tempering conditions that lower ductile-to-brittle transition temperatures were favored by increasing amounts of austenite in the structure. In fact, the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature was quite low, about -750 C, for the tempered at 5250 C for 3.16 hours microstructure of the alloy in this series which contained the highest nickel and the highest amount of retained austenite after quenching. At this point it is believed the austenite content is an important contributor to the low ductile-to-brittle transition temperature of this microstructure.

Research Organization:
Carnegie-Mellon Univ., Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, Pittsburgh, PA (United States)
OSTI ID:
350561
Report Number(s):
AD-A-359406/XAB; CNN: Contract F49620-97-1-0156; TRN: 91170596
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: 14 Dec 1998
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English