Microstructure and mechanical properties of 12 wt.% Cr ferritic stainless steel with Ti and Nb dual stabilization

TCS stainless steel is a 12 wt.% Cr ferritic stainless steel with 0.040 wt.% Ti and 0.096 wt.% Nb dual stabilization. This paper investigated the microstructures and mechanical properties of TCS stainless steel heated at 600–1300 °C for 10 min and followed water quenching. Results show the increasing of both tensile strength and hardness meanwhile the ductility and toughness have experienced the decreasing due to formation of martensitic phase and grain coarsening. In the unheated and heated TCS stainless steel, there are mainly two kinds of particles: Ti-rich particles in size of 2–5 μm; Nb-rich particles in size of 20–50 nm.