Structure and Texture Evolution of the Metastable Austenitic Steel during Cold Working

This work studies the structure and texture evolution in the 03Kh19N10 corrosion-resistant metastable austenitic steel (0.05C–18.2Cr–8.8Ni–1.65Mn–0.43Si–0.05P–0.04S wt %, and Fe for balance) during cold rolling, which results in twinning and martensitic transformation. The strain-induced martensite nucleates heterogeneously in the microshear bands and at their intersections. The fraction of strain-induced martensite increases with increasing true strain and approaches 80% at е = 3. The development of deformation twins, microshear bands, and martensitic crystallites results in the formation of a uniform nanocrystalline structure consisting of elongated γ/α' crystallites 100 nm in cross-section size after large deformation (е = 2–3). The austenite texture after cold rolling is characterized by the strong Brass ({110} 〈112〉) and Goss ({110}〈001〉) texture components, whereas the strain-induced martensite texture is characterized by strong texture component I* ({223}〈110〉) and an increased orientation density along γ fiber (〈111〉 ∥ ND). The orientation of the γ/α'-phase boundaries depends on the strain value.