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Materials Science & Engineering A 736 (2018) 364–374

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Materials Science & Engineering A

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/msea

Effect of post deformation annealing on the microstructure and mechanical T

properties of cold rolled AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel
⁎
H.A. Rezaeia, M. Shaban Ghazanib, B. Eghbalia,
a
Department of Materials Science Engineering, Sahand University of Technology, P.O. Box: 51335-1996, Tabriz, Iran
b
Department of Materials Science Engineering, University of Bonab, P.O. Box: 5551761167, Bonab, Iran

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In the present research, the AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel was subjected to cold rolling with different amount
AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel of reductions. The 80% cold rolled samples were then annealed in the temperature range of 700–900 °C with
Cold rolling different durations. The microstructural evolutions during cold rolling and subsequent annealing were in-
Bimodal grain structure vestigated by XRD analysis, optical and scanning electron microscopy, and feritscope analysis. The mechanical
Mechanical properties
properties were evaluated by room temperature tensile testing. Results showed that the amount of strain induced
martensite is increased with increasing the rolling reduction. Annealing at 700 °C for 2 min resulted in the
simultaneous increase of tensile strength and elongation due to the formation of ultrafine grain austenite. By
annealing at 900 °C for 5, 10, and 15 min the bimodal grain structure was obtained as a result of the occurrence
of static recrystallization and martensite to austenite reverse transformation simultaneously. Results of tensile
testing showed that the good combination of strength and elongation is obtained by the formation of bimodal
grain structure.

1. Introduction advanced thermomechanical processing (ATMP) [12]. During severe

Austenitic stainless steels are used in a wide range of applications
due to their several desirable characteristics such as the combination of
the resistance to oxidation at high temperatures as a result of the for-
mation of passive chromium oxide (Cr2O3) film on the surface [1], and
the creep resistance [2,3], which makes them suitable for high tem-
perature applications. For example, austenitic stainless steels are suc-
cessfully used in the power generation industry at temperatures above
650 °C and remain in service for more than 100,000 h [4]. Although,
austenitic stainless steels have a good corrosion resistance [5] and
formability [6] but their yield strength is relatively low. For example,
the 0.2% offset yield strength of coarse grained AISI 316 austenitic
stainless steel is around 250 MPa at ambient temperature [7]. There-
fore, increasing the strength of stainless steels seems necessary to ex-
tend their application toward heavier loading conditions. In this regard,
one of the ways to improve the strength of austenitic stainless steels is
the addition of alloying elements such as nitrogen which increases
tensile and yield strength with the expense of their ductility and
formability [8]. Another effective way is the grain refinement which
increases the strength and toughness without impairing ductility
[9,10]. The commonly used techniques for grain refinement are based
on two different approaches: severe plastic deformation (SPD)[11] and
plastic deformation, a very high levels of plastic strain is imposed on
sample through repetitive processing and the grain refinement is
achieved by the mechanism similar to continuous dynamic re-
crystallization where the grain boundaries are developed from dis-
location cells as a result of the extended recovery and increase of the
misorientation angle with continued straining [13]. The main draw-
backs of SPD techniques are the batch nature of these processes and also
the small dimensions of processed samples which make them suitable
for the synthesis of the laboratory scale samples instead of the industrial
scale production of ultrafine grained and nanostructured steels. In
contrast with SPD processing, the advanced thermomechanical pro-
cesses can be performed in industrial scale to produce ultrafine grained
steels products such as sheets and strips. For plain carbon and micro-
alloyed steels the advanced thermomechanical processes are based on
different approaches such as strain induced austenite to ferrite trans-
formation [14], rolling in the inter critical temperatures range [15,16],
cold rolling and annealing of martensitic steels [17]. In the case of
austenitic stainless steels, the austenite phase is stable at ambient
temperature and austenite to ferrite transformation which is the base of
thermomechanical processing of plain carbon steels does not occur
during cooling. The new thermomechanical treatment for austenitic
stainless steel is the heavy cold deformation which is followed by

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: eghbali@sut.ac.ir (B. Eghbali).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2018.09.012
Received 10 June 2018; Received in revised form 5 August 2018; Accepted 5 September 2018
Available online 06 September 2018
0921-5093/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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H.A. Rezaei et al. Materials Science & Engineering A 736 (2018) 364–374

annealing [18,19]. In this process the austenite phase is transformed to

metastable martensite during cold deformation and the ultrafine
grained microstructure is obtained through the martensite to austenite
reversion annealing [20]. The cold rolling and reversion annealing
process has been successfully performed on different types of austenitic
stainless steels such as AISI 201 [21], AISI 301 [22], AISI 304 [23,24]
steels and the pronounced grain refinement was observed. Careful in-
spection of literature shows that the response of the Ti stabilized aus-
tenitic stainless steel (AISI 321) to the cold working and reversion an-
nealing process has not been studied yet. Therefore, in the present
investigation, the AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel was subjected to
cold rolling with 80% reduction and the formation of strain induced
martensite was studied using optical microscopy and x-ray diffraction
analysis. Also, obtained ultra-fine grained microstructure after rever- Fig. 1. Schematic of the thermomechanical procedure used in the current
sion annealing was characterized and its impact on mechanical prop- study.
erties was evaluated using tensile testing.
3. Results and discussion

2. Material and experimental procedure

3.1. Microstructural evolution during initial annealing

In the present investigation, the AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel

was used in the form of a sheet with a thickness of 10 mm. The chemical
composition of the investigated steel is shown in Table 1. The sheet was
cut into smaller pieces with dimensions of 150 × 25 mm to be suitable
for cold rolling. All pieces were solution annealed at 1200 °C for 15 min
and then quenched in water to obtain a fully austenitic structure. The
cold rolling was then applied at room temperature with a thickness
reduction of 10%, 30%, 60%, 80%, and 90%. After a few passes, the
pieces were cooled in water to prevent temperature rise during rolling.
Cold rolled samples were then cut to be used for metallography, tensile
testing and further processing with reversion annealing according to the
procedure shown in Fig. 1. The reversion annealing was performed in
the temperature range of 700–900 °C for different durations (2, 5, 10,
15, and 25 min). Samples were quenched in water after the specified
annealing times. The microstructures of annealed samples were in-
vestigated using optical microscopy. The common metallographic pro-
cedure was used for preparation of samples for optical microscopy
analysis. For this reason, the sample surfaces were ground using silicon
carbide papers from 100 to 2500 grit and then mechanically polished
using 0.05 µm alumina suspension. The electrolytic etching in the so-
lution of 50% nitric acid and distilled water, by applying the current
density of 0.1 mA/cm2, was used to reveal the grain structure. Optical
micrographs were obtained using Olympus PMG3 microscope. X-ray
diffraction analysis was performed for identification of different phases
in the cold rolled samples. For this reason, the Bruker Advanced D8
diffractometer was used with the step size of 0.1 and step time of 1 s. A
XL30 scanning electron microscope equipped with EDS was used to
identify the chemical composition of inclusion.
Also, the volume fraction of martensite phase at cold rolled samples
was determined using Fischer FMP30 feritscope. The mechanical
properties of samples annealed at different temperatures and durations
was evaluated by tensile testing at room temperature. Tensile samples
were prepared according to the ASTM E8 standard. Tensile tests were
conducted using Gotech AI-7000-LA20 testing machine with the cross
head speed of 0.1 mm/min and the average of two tests was used for
determination of tensile strength and elongation to failure of each
sample.
Table 1
Chemical composition of as received AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel (%wt.).
C Si Mn Cr Ni Mo Ti N Fe
0.036 0.421 1.910 17.154 8.620 0.374 0.303 0.013 Bal.
Fig. 2(a) represents the optical micrograph of AISI 321 austenitic
stainless steel before etching. The TiN inclusions are easily dis-
tinguished as yellow color particles distributed uniformly in the matrix.
Fig. 2(b) shows the microstructure of AISI 321 steel after annealing at
1200 °C for 15 min. As can be seen, the microstructure is composed of
austenite phase with mean grain size about 200 µm. Also, some an-
nealing twins are observable inside austenite grains in conjunction with
TiN inclusions. For further confirmation, the X-ray diffraction analysis
was performed on annealed steel. The diffraction pattern of as annealed
AISI 321 steel is shown in Fig. 2(c). It is obvious that only the austenite
peaks are distinguished in the peak profile of the annealed material.
Therefore, the results confirmed that only austenite phase exists in the
annealed microstructure.
3.2. Microstructural evolution during cold rolling
It is well known that the cross slip of dislocations in face centered
cubic (FCC) materials become difficult with decreasing stacking fault
energy [25]. Austenitic stainless steels are among the low stacking fault
energy materials and their microstructures are prone to dynamic re-
crystallization when deforming at high temperatures [26]. Also, the low
temperature deformation of austenitic stainless steels such as cold
rolling is accompanied by the formation of deformation induced twins
and subsequent austenite to martensite transformation [27]. In this
class of materials, mechanical twins are formed as a result of the suc-
cessive accumulation of stacking faults on the {111} slip planes. But,
the ε martensite is formed due to the alternative pile up of stacking
faults. The stacking fault energy (SFE) of austenitic stainless steels can
be evaluated using the following expression [28]:
mJ
SFE ⎛ 2 ⎞ = −53 + 0.7(%Cr )−6.2(%Ni )−3.2(%Mn)+9.3(%Mo)
⎝m ⎠
According to the above equation, the SFE of the investigated aus-
tenitic stainless steel is calculated to be 22 mJ/m2. If the SFE of aus-
tenitic stainless steel is higher than 20 mJ/m2, the ε martensite is not
formed during cold deformation. In this case, intersected mechanical
twins are formed at lower strains and the ά martensite is developed at
higher imposed strains mainly in the intersected regions of twin
boundaries. In contrast, when the SFE is lower than 20 mJ/m2, the ε
martensite is formed at initial stage of cold deformation and the ά
martensite is developed with further straining [28]. It is concluded that
the ε martensite is not formed during deformation of the investigated
steel because the SFE value is higher than 20 mJ/m2. Fig. 3 shows the
microstructure of AISI 321 steel after cold rolling with 80% reduction.
In this optical micrograph the dark regions contain shear bands,

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Fig. 2. Optical micrographs of AISI 321 steel before etching (a), and after etching (b), and X-ray diffraction pattern (c) after annealing at 1200 °C for 15 min.
Fig. 3. Microstructure of cold roled AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel after 80%
reduction.
mechanical twins and ά martensite phase and the bright regions are
deformed austenite with lower values of plastic deformation. It was
well established that the microstructure of heavily cold worked metals
is in the fibrous form. This type of microstructure is consisted of in-
termittent layers of severely deformed and somewhat low strained
material [29]. For evaluation of the effect of plastic strain on the
amount of strain induced martensite phase, the AISI 321 austenitic
stainless steel was subjected to different rolling reductions and the X-
ray diffraction patterns were compared with that of as annealed ma-
terial. Fig. 4 shows the XRD patterns of as annealed and cold deformed
AISI 321 steel after 30%, 60% and 80% rolling reductions. It can be
seen, that the annealed materials doesn’t exhibit any peaks of the BCC
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Materials Science & Engineering A 736 (2018) 364–374
lattice structure (martensite phase). However after 30% rolling reduc-
tion, the martensite peaks are appeared in the X-ray diffraction pattern
but the austenite peaks are still presents with higher intensities which
demonstrates that the austenite to martensite transformation was in-
itiated but the higher fraction of microstructure is composed of auste-
nite phase. Unlike 30% cold rolled steel, the peak intensities of the
austenite phase after 60% cold rolling is much less than martensite
phase, which indicates the progress of the transformation of deforma-
tion induced austenite to martensite phase. Also, after 80% cold rolling
the peak intensities of the austenite phase are very weak or the peaks
are disappeared. The feritscope was used for determination of the
martensite contents of the cold rolled steel. It must be mentioned that
the feritscope device measures the ferrite or martensite content in the
microstructure of dual phase steels according to the magnetic induction
method. In this method, a magnetic field generated by a coil enters into
interaction with the magnetic components of the specimen. The
changes in the magnetic field induce a voltage proportional to the
ferrite content in a second coil. Fig. 5 shows the variations of martensite
content with the amount of the reduction during cold rolling. As it is
clear the amount of strain induced martensite is increased with rolling
reduction and comprises about the 50% of microstructure after 90%
cold rolling. It is worth noting that the martensite phase in austenitic
stainless steels is developed in the interesting regions of shear bands
and deformation twins. The number of intersecting regions is increased
with increasing the amount of cold working and consequently the vo-
lume fraction of martensite phase is increased.
3.3. Microstructural evolution during post deformation annealing
As mentioned before, the nature of inclusions that are scattered in a
microstructure, with a square or triangular morphology, cannot be
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Fig. 4. X-ray diffraction patterns of AISI 321 austenitic steel at different conditions: a) As annealed, b) 30% cold worked, c) 60% cold worked, d) 80% cold worked
state.
distinguished using the x-ray diffraction pattern due to their very small
volume fraction. Fig. 6 represents the SEM micrograph along with EDS
analysis from the scattered inclusions in the austenite matrix. As it is
clear, these inclusions contain titanium and nitrogen elements that
match with the composition of TiN intermetallic phase. The optical
micrographs from the microstructure of AISI 321 austenitic stainless
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Materials Science & Engineering A 736 (2018) 364–374
steel after annealing at 700 C for different durations are shown in Fig. 7.
In all microstructures, the dark regions indicate the martensite phase or
the ultra-fine grained austenite transformed from strain induced mar-
tensite during annealing, and the bright regions are the elongated
austenite grains exist in the microstructure of samples after cold rolling.
It is worth noting that static recovery is occurred inside these elongated
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Fig. 5. Variations of the martensite phase fraction with cold rolling reduction.
grains during annealing. Some shear bands are also observed in Fig. 7 as
indicated by arrows. In addition, the dark regions in Fig. 7 are heavily
deformed austenite which was transformed to ά martensite during de-
formation, and the ultrafine grained austenite formed from martensite
phase during annealing. Therefore, some regions with ultrafine grained
austenite phase are formed in the microstructure after annealing at
700̊C. Also, it is seen that the volume fraction of ultrafine grained
austenite is increased with increasing annealing time from 2 to 25 min.
It is observed that after annealing for 25 min at 700 °C, near the 70% of
microstructure is transformed to ultrafine grained austenite. Also, shear
bands inside the elongated austenite grains were disappeared due to the
annealing effect (see Fig. 7(d)). It is worth noting that the annealing
temperature of 700̊ °C is not higher enough to trigger static re-
crystallization inside cold rolled austenite (bright regions in Fig. 7)
during annealing so that the elongated austenite grains are observed in
all of the annealed microstructures.
Fig. 8 represents the optical microstructures of AISI 321 austenitic
stainless steel after cold rolling and annealing at 900̊C for different
durations. As can be seen, after annealing for 2 min at 900 °C (Fig. 8(a)),
the microstructure is composed of austenite grains elongated in the
rolling directions with shear bands aligned parallel to each other and
ultrafine austenite grains developed in some regions between two
neighboring elongated grains. After 5 min annealing (Fig. 8(b)), some
equiaxed grains are observed inside elongated austenite grains in con-
junction with the ultrafine grains developed as a consequence of the
reversion of strain induced martensite to austenite phase. It is also
worth to note that the static recrystallization of cold worked austenite
grains is not complete after annealing for 5 min and the boundaries
between elongated grains are observable indicating the cold worked
features. In Fig. 8(c), the microstructure after 10 min annealing at
Fig. 6. SEM micrograph from TiN inclusion (a), and related EDS analysis (b).
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Materials Science & Engineering A 736 (2018) 364–374
900 °C, it is seen that the fraction and the size of recrystallized grains
inside primary austenite grains (cold worked grains) is increased
compared with the microstructure of annealed sample for 5 min. It is
also apparent that the mean grain size of the ultrafine austenite grains
developed as a result of the martensite to austenite inverse transfor-
mation is increased with increasing the annealing time to 10 min. As
seen in Fig. 8(c), the bimodal grain structure is developed after an-
nealing at 900 °C for 10 min which is consisted of the intermittent layers
of recrystallized grains and finer grains developed as a result of the
martensite to austenite reversion. Increasing annealing time to 15 min
(Fig. 8(d)) results in the growth of the two types of austenite grains but
the traces of the elongated primary austenite grains are remained due to
the limited growth of the recrystallized and reversion transformed
austenite grains. Whereas, the uniform microstructure with equiaxed
austenite grains are developed after annealing for 25 min at 900 °C and
the traces of the primary elongated austenite grains are disappeared
(Fig. 8(e)). As can be seen, the bimodal grain structure is replaced with
uniform grain structure after prolonged annealing due to the higher
growth rate of the ultrafine austenite grains compared with statically
recrystallized grains. Therefore, the difference between the grain sizes
of these two types of austenite grains is decreased with increasing the
annealing duration and finally the uniform grain structure is obtained.
It is worth to note that the high amounts of Ti is added to AISI 321
austenitic stainless steel to prevent grain boundary sensitization at high
temperatures. This amounts of Ti (for example 0.32% wt. in the in-
vestigated steel) is high enough to form different types of precipitates
and inclusions. It is well stablished that the TiN inclusions are formed
during solidification process and remain stable upon cooling to ambient
temperature [29]. This type of inclusions are in the size of several
micrometer and distributed uniformly in the austenite matrix. Also, it
has been demonstrated that the nanometer sized TiC and Ti(C, N)
precipitates are formed in the matrix of Ti modified steels [30].
Therefore, the interaction of nanometer sized precipitates with auste-
nite grain boundaries decreases the boundary mobility and hinder the
growth of austenite grains. Also, the coarse TiN inclusions provides
preferred nucleation sites for static recrystallization during annealing
which is called particle stimulated nucleation (PSN) [31]. Accordingly,
the both mentioned mechanisms result in higher levels of grain re-
finement in AISI 321 steel compared with other grades of austenitic
stainless steels.
Fig. 9 shows the optical microstructures of cold rolled AISI 321
austenitic stainless steel after annealing for 25 min at different tem-
peratures. As mentioned, at annealing temperature of 700 °C the com-
bination of ultrafine and primary elongated austenite grains are ob-
served after 25 min annealing (Fig. 9(a)). Increasing annealing
temperature to 750 °C, results in the growth of reverted austenite
grains. Careful inspection of Fig. 9(b) reveals that the shear bands are
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Fig. 7. Optical microstructures of cold rolled AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel annealed at 700 °C for different durations: a) 2 min, b) 5 min, c) 10 min, d) 15 min, and
e) 25 min.
observable inside some elongated grains. It is concluded that the static
recrystallization is not initiated at this temperature. At annealing
temperature of 800 °C (Fig. 9(c)) the size of the reverted austenite
grains is increased and shear bands are disappeared which is the in-
dication of the occurrence of recrystallization. After annealing at 850 °C
(Fig. 9(d)) the bimodal grain structure is obtained as a result of the
martensite to austenite reversion and static recrystallization in elon-
gated grains. Finally, the uniform grain structure is obtained as a result
of the austenite grain growth (Fig. 9(e)).
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Materials Science & Engineering A 736 (2018) 364–374
3.4. Mechanical properties
Fig. 10 represents the engineering stress - engineering strain curves
of initial annealed (d~ 200 µm) and cold rolled steel. As can be seen,
the AISI 321 steel in the annealed condition has lower strength and
higher elongation to failure compared with cold worked condition.
Elongation to failure of annealed steel is around 125% which decreases
to 14.7% after 80% cold rolling reduction. Also, the tensile strength is
increased from 440 MPa to 1270 MPa by cold rolling. The increase in
the tensile strength value and the reduction of the elongation to failure
of austenitic stainless steels with cold rolling can be attributed to the
increased dislocation density, formation of substructures and the
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Fig. 8. Optical microstructures of cold rolled AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel annealed at 900 °C for different durations: a) 2 min, b) 5 min, c) 10 min, d) 15 min, and
e) 25 min.
presence of deformation induced martensite. In the present investiga-
tion, the effect of post annealing treatment on mechanical properties of
the AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel were evaluated using a series of
tensile testing at room temperature. Fig. 11 shows the engineering
stress-strain curves of material after annealing at 700 °C and 900 °C for
different durations. Also the effect of annealing duration on tensile
strength and elongation of cold rolled steel is represented in Fig. 12. As
it is evident, both of tensile strength and elongation to failure of sam-
ples annealed for 2 min at 700 °C is higher than the cold rolled sample.
The increase in the tensile strength with annealing can be described
according to the microstructural evolutions. It must be mentioned that
during annealing for 2 min the strength of material is affected with two
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Materials Science & Engineering A 736 (2018) 364–374
important microstructural phenomena. The first one is the occurrence
of recovery inside the deformed austenite grains and the second is the
formations of reverted ultrafine grained austenite from strain induce
martensie in the area of primary austenite grain boundaries. In the
initial stages of annealing the degree of the increase in strength due to
the formation of ultrafine grain (UFG) austenite is higher than the
amount of softening due to the recovery inside the primary austenite
grains. Therefore, the tensile strength is increased with annealing.
Further annealing results in the higher degree of recovery with the
annihilation and rearrangement of dislocations inside the elongated
grains and also the growth of UFG austenite grains developed at the
early stages of annealing. Therefore it is observed that the tensile
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Fig. 9. Optical microstructures of col rolled AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel annealed for 25 min at different temperatures: a) 700 °C, b) 750 °C, c) 800 °C, d) 850 °C,
and e) 900 °C.
strength is decreased with increasing annealing time. Also, it is ap-
parent that the elongation is almost constant at annealed samples. The
insignificant variations of elongation with annealing time are a con-
sequence of the microstructural evolutions. The occurrence of static
recovery inside deformed austenite increases the amount of elongation
to failure but its effect is compensated by the decrease in elongation due
to the formation of ultrafine grained austenite. As can be seen in Fig. 7
the volume fraction of reverted austenite is increased with annealing
time and its inverse effect on elongation is compensated by the progress
of recovery in primary elongated austenite grains. Fig. 11 (b) shows the
stress-strain curves of cold rolled steel after annealing at 900 °C for
different durations. Also, the effect of annealing time on tensile strength
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Materials Science & Engineering A 736 (2018) 364–374
and elongation of cold rolled AISI 321 steel is shown in Fig. 12 (b). As it
is seen, the tensile strength is decreased with annealing duration and
the elongation to failure is increase and reaches to the steady state
value. The variations in the mechanical properties can be explained
considering the microstructural evolutions during annealing at 900 °C.
As it is obvious in Fig. 8, the static recrystallization is occurred inside
primary cold worked austenite grains and the reverted austenite grains
formed from strain induced martensite grow during annealing. As it is
seen, the difference between the grain size of recrystallized and re-
verted austenite grain is decreased with increasing annealing time and
the bimodal structure formed in the initial stages of annealing changes
into uniform microstructure after annealing for 25 min (Fig. 8(e)).
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H.A. Rezaei et al.
Fig. 10. Engineering stress vs. strain curves of as received and 80% cold rolled
AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel.
Therefore, during short time annealing the partial recrystallization is
occurred (Fig. 8(a)) and the reverted austenite grains doesn’t grow
significantly. Accordingly, the tensile strength is higher and the elon-
gation to failure is lower compared with other samples. With increasing
annealing time the volume fraction of recrystallized austenite is in-
creased and the ultrafine grained austenite grains grow so that the
tensile strength is decreased and the elongation is increased. It is im-
portant to mention that the elongation is almost constant in samples
Fig. 11. Engineering stress-strain curves of cold rolled AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel after annealing at a) 700 °C, and b) 900 °C for different durations.
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Materials Science & Engineering A 736 (2018) 364–374
annealed for 5–15 min. Inspection of the resultant microstructures in
Fig. 8 reveals that the bimodal microstructure is developed at these
annealing conditions. Therefore, the elongation to failure is affected by
the size and volume fraction of these two types of austenite grains.
Finer austenite grains are developed as a result of the reversion of strain
induced martensite and larger grains are developed due to the static
recrystallization inside deformed grains. With increasing annealing
time in the range of 5–15 min the size of recrystallized grains is in-
creased but their fraction is decreased due to the growth of UFG grains
from grain boundary areas of elongated grains toward the interior re-
gions. Therefore, the increased elongation due to the growth of re-
crystallized large grains is compensated by the effect of the increasing
the fraction of fine grains developed as a result of the reversion of strain
induced martensite. So that during annealing in the time range of
5–15 min the elongation remains almost constant. The higher growth
rate of UFG austenite grains compared with the growth rate of statically
recrystallized grains results in the uniform microstructure after an-
nealing for 25 min (Fig. 8(e)). It is deduced by comparing Fig. 12 (a)
and (b) that the elongation of cold rolled AISI 321 steel is increased
significantly during annealing at 900 °C compared with annealing at
700 °C. It should be mentioned that the higher elongation with an-
nealing at 900 °C is due to the occurrence of dynamic recrystallization
inside elongated austenite grains and the considerable growth of UFG
austenite grains developed in the early stage of annealing from strain
induced martensie.
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Fig. 12. The variations of tensile strength and elongation of the cold roled AISI
321 austenitic stainless steel with subsequent annealing time at the temperature
of: a) 700 °C, b) 900 °C.
4. Conclusions
In the present investigation the AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel
was subjected to cold rolling and subsequent annealing in the tem-
perature range of 700–900 °C and the resultant microstructures and
mechanical properties were investigated. The main results are as
bellow:
1. The fibrous microstructure is achieved after cold rolling with 80%
thickness reduction. This microstructure is consisted of elongated
austenite grains where the inner regions of grains experience lower
strains and appear as bright contrast in the optical micrographs. But
the grain boundary regions of elongated grains experience higher
strains and appear in dark contrast in optical micrograph. These
regions contain intersected shear bands and strain induced mar-
tensite phase.
2. The volume fraction of strain induced martensite is increased with
increasing rolling reduction. After 90% thickness reduction, the 50%
of microstructure is composed of strain induced martensite phase.
3. During annealing at 700 °C for different durations the combination
of ultrafine grained austenite and the elongated primary austenite
grains observed in the microstructure.
4. At the early stages of annealing at 700 °C the elongation to failure is
increased due to the occurrence of recovery inside primary austenite
grains. In contrast, the elongation remains constant with further
annealing at this temperature due to the effect of the ultrafine grains
formed as a result of the martensite to austenite reverse transfor-
mation.
5. The bimodal grain structure is obtained after annealing at 900 °C for
5, 10, and 15 min as a result of the concurrent occurrence of static
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Materials Science & Engineering A 736 (2018) 364–374
recrystallization in the elongated austenite grains and martensite to
austenite reversion in the primary austenite grain boundaries.
6. The good combination of strength and elongation was achieved by
the formation of bimodal microstructures where the coarse grains
resulted from static recrystallization improves elongation compared
with cold rolled sample and finer grains resulted from martensite to
austenite reversion improves strength compared with initial coarse
grained microstructure.
7. During annealing for 25 min at 900 °C, the uniform grain structure
obtained due to the higher grows rate of UFG austenite grains
compared with recrystallized coarse grains.
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