Change of Precipitation Behavior and Impact Toughness with Depths in Quenched Thick SAF 2507 Super Duplex Stainless Steel

We investigated the change of precipitation behavior and impact resistance as a function of depth from the surface of thick block of SAF 2507 super duplex stainless steel with the thickness (T) of 200 mm after water quenching from 1050 °C. The amount of detrimental sigma phase increased smoothly until the depth of 0.25T, followed by a rapid increase from 0.25T to the center. However, the impact strength decreased significantly with only 1.3% of area fraction of sigma phase as the depth increased past 0.1T. Based on fractography analysis for the samples at such small depth ranges, the distance between the sigma phase particles affected the relative amount of initiating brittle cracks in front of the notch and was one of the crucial factors that dramatically reduced impact resistance with depth.