Effect of Grain Structure on the Mechanical and Corrosion Behavior of Advanced Medium Mn Stainless TWIP Steel

The influence of recrystallization annealing on the microstructure, mechanical properties and corrosion behaviour of an austenitic TWIP steel bearing medium Mn and V alloying was investigated. The steel undergone a heavy cold deformation of 65 % reduction. Subsequently, recrystallization annealing at 1000 °C and 1100 °C for 15 min was conducted to achieve different grain structures. The microstructural evolution was studied using optical microscopy and electron backscatter diffraction technique. Mechanical properties were determined using tensile tests at room temperature. Corrosion behaviour was measured by cyclic potentiodynamic polarization at 3.5 pct NaCl. For comparison, austenitic stainless-steel Type 201 was used in this study. It was observed that at 1000 °C, a non-uniform austenitic grain structure with vanadium carbides distributed throughout the matrix was obtained. However, a coarse grain structure without carbides was induced at 1100 °C. The fine-grained structure enhanced at 1000 °C exhibited higher strength and good ductility. Contrary to this, the corrosion results showed that a significant deterioration in the corrosion resistance could be observed in sodium chloride solution for the achieved structure at 1000 °C compared to 201 stainless steel.