Effect of Mn on <i>σ</i> Phase and Toughness of 22%Cr Duplex Stainless Steel by Aging Treatment at 700℃

Abstract

The effect of different Mn contents on the σ phase and toughness of 22%Cr (mass fraction, the same below) low-nickel DSS by means of OM, XRD, SEM, TEM, precipitation kinetics and Charpy impact tests was studied. The results show that the morphology of precipitated phases changes from tiny granulated σ phase in δ/γ phase boundary to σ/γ2 eutectoid structure within δ phase with the addition of Mn from 4.3% to 9.7% and 76 hours aging. The increase of Mn content can decrease Avrami exponent n and increase reaction constant B, and the accelerating of σ-phase precipitation with higher Mn addition is due to the participation of Mn. Increasing Mn content can make initial time and ending time of σ-phase precipitation earlier and expand the interval between the initial time and ending time of σ-phase precipitation, that is, the more Mn addition, the earlier precipitation beginning time of σ-phase and the lower precipitation rate of it. The impact toughness is not sensitive to 1% transformation fraction of δ-ferrite, but it drops rapidly while the transformation fraction of δ-ferrite increases from 1% to 5%. More addition of Mn is good to impact toughness at the early stage of aging treatment, but the impact toughness decreases rapidly by accelerating the transformation fraction of δ-ferrite more than 1% earlier at the middle stage of aging time.

Keywords

• Mn content
• aging treatment
• <i>σ</i> phase
• precipitation kinetics
• impact toughness