THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF SELECTED STAINLESS STEELS

R. H. Bogaard

Center for Information and

Numerical Data Analysis and Synthesis
Purdue University
2595 Yeager Road
West Lafayette. Indiana 47906

ABSTRACT

The available experimental data and information for the

thermal conductivity of stainless steels have been exhaustively
searched. comprehensively compiled, and critically evaluated. The
analysis took into account factors such as amount and nature of
alloying element, presence of cold-work, and thermal history.
Also, a significant number of stainless steels produced in other
nations were included as equivalent stainless steels in the
thermal conductivity data base. Subsequently, recommended values
were generated for selected stainless steels with austenitic,
ferritic, martensitic, and precipitation-hardening types being
included. Results for AISI 302, 304, 310, 316, 321, 410, 430,
446. and 631 stainless steels are presented in survey fashion with
AISI 304 steel being discussed in greater detail.

INTRODUCTION

This work on thermal conductivity of stainless steels is part

of a larger, ongoing effort at CINDAS aimed at understanding the
thermophysical and electrical properties of metals and alloys.

The obj ectives of the thermal conductivity effort are as

follows: review literature data for the thermal conductivity of
stainless steels, identify effects due to composition, metallur-
gical structure, and thermal conditioning treatment, and generate
recommended thermal conductivity values consistent with limita-
tions of method and data. A comprehensive and critical literature
175

T. Ashworth et al. (eds.), Thermal Conductivity 18

© Purdue Research Foundation 1985
review has been underway for a number of years at CINDAS. This
has resulted in a great deal of information on the thermal conduc-
tivity of stainless steels being compiled. Specifically. some 70
odd stainless steels have been identified. 36 of which carry an
AISI designation. In addition are a number of stainless steels
produced in Czechoslovakia. France. W. Germany. Sweden. U.S.S.R ••
and the United Kingdom. Roughly one-third of these steels were
included as equivalent stainless steels in assembling the thermal
conductivity data base. A stainless steel is. of course. identi-
fied in terms of its chromium composition (C L 12%). In addition.
however. a number of other factors have been identified by the
literature which affect properties of stainless steels in general.
and thermal conductivity in particular. They are metallurgical
structure. heat-treatment history. and of course. composition.
Ultimately. if we wish to say something about the thermal conduc-
tivity for a particular stainless steel. for instance to generate
a set of thermal conductivity values carrying an uncertainty at
the ±3% to 5% level. then we must be careful about stating the
condition of the steel and take seriously an author's comments
about his own measurements.

In the following. the data base for one particular stainless

steel. AISI 304. will be discussed in greater detail. Then three
classes of stainless steels will be surveyed (austenitic. ferritic
and martensitic. and precipitation-hardenable) with results shown
for selected members from each class.

AISI 304 STAINLESS STEEL

The starting point is the available literature data. AISI

304 has been a popular stainless steel. with experimental infor-
mation spanning some 30 years and including the fifteen references
[1-15] with 20 sets of data shown in Fig. 1. The materials repre-
sented are all broadly of the AISI 304 type. This includes AISI
304 [1-5.9-13]. the equivalent X 5 CrNi 18 9 [15]. a generic
18Cr-llNi-0.08C steel [14]. the low-carbon modification AISI 304L
[7]. and NS 22S [8] and 3R 12 BV [6] which are low-carbon equiva-
lents. These steels are solution-annealed. Even though material
variability is not an issue here it is worthwhile mentioning that
reduced carbon reportedly does enhance the electrical resistivity
by perhaps 2% or more below room temperature [16]. An effect of
this magnitude is likely too small to be observed in the thermal
conduct i vity.

Recommended values for the thermal conductivity were based on

an average over all the experimental data. At temperatures above
1000 K care was taken to assure a slope consistent with the com-
paratively fewer data available for those temperatures. The
steepening slope at the lowest temperatures shown in Fig. 1 is due

176
 35~----r-----~----~----~----'-----'------r-----r----~

<>

T~
30
'E
~ Symbol Author (s'
Brophy and Sinnoll (1960)"
~
~ 25 Oeveroll (1959)"
3> Powell and Tyo (1967)" Symbol Author (s'
i= Brauner and Friedhoff (1971 )'S
Powers et 01. (1951)'
U Roconvnended
::::> Ewing et 01. (1952)'
C
z 20
Przybycien and Linde (1957"
Taylor et 01. (1968)'
0
U
. Brown and Berglos (1968)·
A

..J Permo et 01. (1969) •

<t <> Feith ot 01. (1969,7
::E
0::
w 15 •v Fiebelmann (l972)e
Tye et 01. (1972).
J: Tye ot 01. (1977)'0
~
Goldrall and Greenfield (1978'"

CINDAS TEMPERATURE, K

Fig. 1. Thermal Conductivity of AISI 304 Stainless Steel.

5
~

--.....
iL:
..<
4

~
!:::
IL.

..<
I

~
8
..<
L...J -I

Z
.
o -3 - (LEGEND GIVEN IN FIGURE I)

~
~ -4

1600

Fig. 2. Deviation Plot for AISI 304 Stainless Steel.

177
 Table 1. Thermal Conductivity of AISI 304 Stainless Steel a

[Temperature, T, K; Thermal Conductivity, A, W m- 1K-1 ]

T A T A T A

100 9.34 400 16.43 1000 25.71

150 11.35 450 17.13 1100 27.12
200 12.S4 500 17.93 1200 2S.47
250 13.99 550 lS.S1 1300 29.74
273 14.44 600 19.67 1400 30.92
293 14.79 700 21.31 1500 32.00
300 14.92 SOO 22.81 1600b 33.00
350 15.71 900 24.2S 1707 34.01
a
Values are for the solution-annealed condition. The
uncertainty is estimated to be within ±4%.
b
Solidus temperature.

in part to the lattice thermal conductivity which, as will be

discussed below, has a maximum at roughly 200 K and amounts to not
quite half the measured value at that temperature. Above 300 K
the existing data [3,5,6,9-15] are divided according to slope with
two data sets [5,11] indicating a quite flat slope from 300-500 K,
and also according to magnitude with several data sets [5,11,14,
15] indicating rather low values between 300 and 500 K. Since at
present no physical mechanism has been identified that would
reduce the thermal conductivity over this span of temperatures,
the recommended curve essentially bypassed the lowest lying data.
Generally, the recommended curve was drawn such that the devia-
tions of the literature data scattered symmetrically as shown in
Fig. 2. The recommended values are given in Table 1. They carry
an uncertainty estimated to be within ±4% based upon the devia-
tions shown in Fig. 2.

AISI 302, 304, 310, 316 AND 321 STAINLESS STEELS

The thermal conductivity for a selected group of austenitic

stainless steels is shown in Fig. 3. The overall behavior of
these steels is consistent with the thermal conductivity of fcc
y-Fe which is, above 1200 K, only about 3 to 5% higher than the
curve for AISI 304 steel. In terms of composition these steels
are variations on the basic '1S-S' (18'lbCr-S%Ni) theme as indicated
in Table 2. AISI 302 contains a few percent less Cr and Ni which
probably accounts for its higher level of thermal conductivity.
The AISI 316 and 310 stainless steels are more heavily alloyed;

178
 35

T
~
30 AISI304
'E
:s:
AISI321
>-
f- 25
:;:
i=
u
;:) AISI321
0
z
8 20 AISI302
....J
<t
::2
0:: AISI304
w
J:
f- 15

CINDAS TEMPERATURE , K
Fig. 3. Thermal Conductivity of AISI 300-Series Stainless Steels.

Table 2. Chemical Compositions of AISI Stainless Steels

AISI C Mn Si Cr Ni Other
~ !!!I!b. max. !!!I!b. Range Range Elements
302 0.15 2.00 1.00 17.0-19.0 8.0-10.0
304 0.08 2.00 1.00 18.0-20.0 8.0-12.0
310 0.25 2.00 1.50 24.0-26.0 19.0-22.0
316 0.08 2.00 1.00 16.0-18.0 10.0-14.0 Mo,2.0-3.0
321 0.08 2.00 1.00 17.0-19.0 9.0-12.0 Ti, 5xC min.
410 0.15 1.00 1.00 11.5-13.5
430 0.12 1.00 1.00 14.0-18.0
446 0.20 1.50 1.00 23.0-27.0 Ni,0.25 max.
631 0.09 1.00 1.00 16.0-18.0 6.50-7.75 AI,0.75-1.50

AISI 316 with 2-3% Mo and AISI 310 with an additional 6% Cr and
10% Ni. The effect of composition is observed to be considerably
reduced at high temperatures. It is noted that the procedure for
each stainless steel was to generate recommended values of thermal
conductivity by averaging together the existing data. Exception
was made only in regions having too few data such as at the

179
highest temperatures where an attempt was made to maintain
consistent behavior from steel-to-steel. Generally, however, the
resulting curve for each stainless steel is just that indicated by
the data.

The lattice thermal conductivity can be obtained from the

total thermal conductivity by estimating the electronic component
from the electrical resistivity. One commonly employs the
Wiedemann-Franz-Lorenz Rule, Aelp = LT, along with the Sommerfeld
value of the Lorenz constant, to, which is valid for high resid-
ual-resistivity alloys, and the absolute temperature, T, to give
the electronic thermal conductivity, Ae = LO TIp. An estimate of
the lattice thermal conductivity, Ag , may then be obtained from
Ag = A - LOTlp (1)

Values of the lattice thermal conductivity estimated from Eq.

(1) for the AISI 300-Series austenitic stainless steels are shown
in Fig. 4. The maximum in the conductivity curves occurs roughly
in the 150 to 250 K region. It is noted that the maximum lattice-
component values are about half of the total thermal conductivity.
Below the maximum the lattice thermal conductivity varies mono-
tonically with temperature. Above the maximum the estimated
values are somewhat scattered and, consequently, the curves shown
represent only smoothed values at higher temperatures. The

6~----r-----.-----'-----'-----~----'-----,,-----r-----r~

T
~ 5
'e
~
>- /AIS1302
!:: 4
> / / AISI304
i= AISI310
u
5 AISI316
~
U
3
AISI316
AISI304
<l
:ii:
a:: AISI302
!t!
I-
2
AISI310

10

CINDAS TEMPERATURE. K
Fig. 4. Lattice Thermal Conductivity of AISI 30o-Series Steels.

180
temperature dependence. except for the AISI 310 stainless steel
curve. is roughly consistent with Ag « ~1.

AISI 410. 430. AND 446 STAINLESS STEELS

For martensitic and ferritic stainless steels the information

base is smaller and the selection of steels is more limited. AISI
410 stainless steel when solution-treated has an austenitic struc-
ture which upon quenching is mostly transformed to martensite and
becomes quite hard. As shown in Fig. 5. the data indicate that
the thermal conductivity is enhanced by annealing and slow-
cooling. perhaps by -20% at room temperature. AlSI 430 and 446
stainless steels have sufficiently high chromium content. 16% and
25%. respectively. to remain ferritic. The enhancement of the
thermal conductivity due to the essentially bcc structure is
evident for temperatures over much of the region shown (see also
Fig. 3). Also evident is the reduction in the thermal conduc-
tivity due to increased chromium content.

In Fig. 6 is shown the lattice thermal conductivity for AlSI

410. 430. and 446 stainless steels. It is noted that the thermal
conductivity maxima occur at roughly 100-200 K. Even though the

30
AISI410
(Annealed and
slow - cooled )

I~ 25
'E
==
>-
.... 20
:>
~
0
AISI 410
(Quenched and
Z hardened)
0 15
U
...J
<t
::!E
a::
IJ.J
:t: 10
....

50 1800

CINDAS TEMPERATURE , K

Fig. 5. Thermal Conductivity of AISI 400-Series Stainless Steels.

181
 14

I
~ 12
Ie
3=
10
>-
I-
~
§ 8
AISI410
Z (Annealed and
8 slow - cooled)

i
~
AISI410
(Quenched and
hardened)
I- 4

2000
TEMPERATURE , K

Fig. 6. Lattice Thermal Condnctivity of AISI 400-Series Steels.

3or-----.-----.-----.-----.-----,-----.------.-----r----~

I Annealed}
Moeller and Wilson (1963 )19
25
. . .
~ THIOSO
Ie
.
Q

. ..
3= Condition A
Condition TH 1050 (Solution - Annealed)
>-
.
20 (Martensitic +
~ Precipitation - Hardened) ..

~ 15

i
~
J: 10
.... Normalized
(KhI7N7Yu)
}
Neimark et al. (1964 )20

I- Heat - treated }
Bungardt and Spyra (1965)21
(X 7 CrNiAI 17 7)

50~--~~--~~--~~--~±7--~~~~~~~~~~~~~180~0

CINDAS TEMPERATURE, K

Fig. 7. Thermal Conductivity of AISI 631 Stainless Steel.

182
maximum value in the lattice component is a factor of roughly x2-3
larger than for the austenitic stainless steels, it remains
roughly half of the total thermal conductivity.

AISI 631 STAINLESS STEEL [17-7PH]

The available literature data for the thermal conductivity of

AISI 631 stainless steel are shown in Fig. 7. Data are reported
for both annealed and precipitation-hardened conditions [19],
while the early data sets [17,18] are uncharacterized. Also shown
are data reported for equivalent stainless steels, X 7 CrNiAl 17 7
[21] and Kh17N7Yu [20]. In both instances the condition of the
steels was reported as indicated in Fig. 7. It is observed that
the precipitation-hardening treatment enhances the thermal con-
ductivity above that for the solution-annealed condition [19,21].
It turns out that this behavior is paralleled in the electrical
resistivity of these materials [16]. The recommended curve is
drawn so as to take into account these very complex phase changes.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to express his thanks to all those

CINDAS staff members, past and present, who have participated in
the critical evaluation and generation of recommended values for
thermal conductivity. Notable among these are T.K. Chu and
M.W. Ackerman.

The extensive literature search, acquisition, and documentary

activities essential to this work were supported by the Defense
Logistics Agency (DLA), U.S. Department of Defense, Arlington, VA.

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184
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185