Improvement of Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance in Austenitic Stainless Steel by Grain Boundary Character Distribution Control

Abstract

Creviced bent beam test is conducted on grain boundary character distribution (GBCD) controlled austenitic stainless steel. Average length and grain quantity of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) decrease after raising low Σ coincidence site lattice (CSL) grain boundary (GB) frequency by post-cold-work heat treatment process. GBCD analysis on SCC path shows that low Σ CSL GB possesses better SCC resistance than random GB. Triple junction distribution (TJD) analysis shows that with raising low Σ CSL GB frequency, continuity of random GB network can be efficiently broken, which leads to a good improvement of SCC resistance in the material.