Study on the Effects of Heat Treatments on the Physical and Mechanical Characteristics of 1.4301 Stainless Steel

Abstract

The 1.4301 stainless steel is part of the category of austenitic stainless steels, steels which do no undergo heat treatments in general, as they are intended for hot plastic deformation in particular. The aim of the research presented in this paper was to obtain significantly improved characteristics of the resistance properties in relation to the values obtained under classical conditions, by applying heat treatments. Samples taken from the delivery state material underwent annealing, quenching and ageing heat treatments. Subsequently, the samples thus treated were subjected to tests enabling the determination of the correlations between the heat treatment parameters, the structure and the properties.