Effect of Thermal Aging on Mechanical Properties and Intergranular Corrosion Resistance of 316LN

doi:10.11901/1005.3093.2022.367

Chinese Journal of Materials Research

2023, Vol. 37

Issue (5): 381-390 DOI: 10.11901/1005.3093.2022.367

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Effect of Thermal Aging on Mechanical Properties and Intergranular Corrosion Resistance of 316LN

YANG Baolei¹^,², LIU Tingguang²(

), SU Xianglin³, FAN Yu², QIU Liang¹, LU Yonghao²

^1.Tianjin Heavy Equipment Engineering Research Co., Ltd., Tianjin 300450, China
^2.National Center for Materials Service Safety, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
^3.Research Institute of Processing Technology, Inner Mongolia First Machinery Group Co., Ltd., North Industries Group Co., Ltd., Baotou 014030, China

Cite this article:

YANG Baolei, LIU Tingguang, SU Xianglin, FAN Yu, QIU Liang, LU Yonghao. Effect of Thermal Aging on Mechanical Properties and Intergranular Corrosion Resistance of 316LN. Chinese Journal of Materials Research, 2023, 37(5): 381-390.

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Abstract

Nitrogen enhanced low carbon 316LN stainless steel, as a single-phase austenitic stainless steel, is selected as a candidate material of primary pipe for the third-generation pressurized water reactors. In the present work, the solution annealed 316LN was thermal aged at 400℃ for 400, 1000, 5000 and 10000 hours, respectively. The microstructures of the solution annealed and thermal aged steels were compared by optical microscope, scanning electron microscope (SEM), electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The effect of thermal aging on mechanical properties of the steels was evaluated by using small punch test, nanoindentation and microhardness tester. The intergranular corrosion resistance of the steels was measured by using electrolytic etching in oxalic acid solution, and the effect of thermal aging on the corrosion resistance of various types of grain boundaries were characterized by using EBSD and atomic force microscope (AFM). The results show that thermal aging at 400℃ for 10000 h will not cause microstructural changes in the micron level of 316LN stainless steel. No change was observed in grain size, grain boundary morphology and characteristics of grain boundary distribution, and no new phase was formed during thermal aging. However, after thermal aging, the lattice parameter becomes smaller, which may be ascribed to that the interstitial atoms and dislocations originally dissolved in grains diffused and migrated towards the grain boundaries. This may result in changes of the mechanical properties of the 316LN, including the increase of strength and hardness, and the lower of plasticity and intergranular corrosion resistance. The intergranular corrosion susceptibilities of all types of grain boundaries increase with the extension of thermal aging time, but the susceptibility of coincidence site lattice (CSL) grain boundaries is always lower than that of random grain boundaries. Hence grain boundary engineering, which is a thermomechanical process and could produce high fraction of low-∑CSL grain boundaries in materials, could be applied to mitigate the intergranular corrosion of 316LN.

Key words: metallic materials 316LN stainless steel thermal aging small punch test intergranular corrosion CSL grain boundary

Received: 06 July 2022

ZTFLH:

TG142.71

Fund: National Key Research and Development Program of China(2019YFB1900905);Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(FRF-TP-20-019A3)

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	YANG Baolei
	LIU Tingguang
	SU Xianglin
	FAN Yu
	QIU Liang
	LU Yonghao

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https://www.cjmr.org/EN/10.11901/1005.3093.2022.367 OR https://www.cjmr.org/EN/Y2023/V37/I5/381

Fig.1 Small punch experimental device

Fig.2 Metallographic and scanning diagrams of 316LN after thermal aging at 400 ℃ for different time (a, a₁) as-received, (b, b₁) 400 h, (c, c₁) 1000 h, (d, d₁) 5000 h, (e, e₁) 10000 h

Fig.3 Grain boundary network diagram of 316LN stainless steel with different thermal aging time

Fig.4 Grain boundary character distributions of samples after different time of thermal aging (red is the proportion of ∑3 boundaries; green is the proportion of ∑9 boundaries; blue is the proportion of ∑27 boundaries; and yellow is the proportion of all low-∑CSL boundaries)

Fig.5 XRD spectrum of 316LN stainless steel with different thermal aging time

Fig.6 Displacement-load curve of small punch test samples with different thermal aging time

Fig.7 Curves of small punch properties with different thermal aging time

Fig.8 Fracture of small punch specimens with different aging time

Fig.9 Nanoindentation curves (a), Relation of microhardness with thermal aging time (b), Curves (c) of nanoindentation hardness and elastic modulus with different thermal aging time

Fig.10 Intergranular corrosion maps of specimens with different thermal aging time

Fig.11 AFM micrographs of the 10000 h thermal aged sample after intergranular corrosion (a) and (c) the depth map of the position marked by black rectangle in Fig.3 was measured by AFM showed in two-dimension and three-dimension respectively, (b) and (d) three-dimension graph of Fig.11 a and c respectively

Fig.12 Linear profile comparisons of AFM along different types of boundaries on different specimens

Table 1 Different types of grain boundary corrosion depth with different thermal aging time

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