Vacuum Hot Pressing of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Ferritic Stainless Steels: Effect of Al Addition on the Microstructure and Properties

The present article investigates the fabrication of oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) ferritic stainless steel (FSS). Three different ODS alloys with three different Al contents were fabricated, where the presence of Al-based oxides play a crucial role in determining the size of the oxide particles. Due to Ostwald ripening, the samples with Al show coarser oxide particles compared to the alloy without Al, which hampers the density of the fabricated samples and, hence, have reduced hardness levels. The present results suggest that the composition of the oxide present in ODS plays a crucial role in determining the properties of these samples.