Stress assisted martensite: Pre-strain, grain-size and strain-rate effects

Basic aspects of martensite transformation during tensile deformation of metastable austenite are discussed. The Patel–Cohen criterion was found to be robust and it could be extended to include process variables such as pre-strain, grain-size and strain-rate, not considered in the original theory. A generalized expression to describe stress-assisted martensite formation is proposed.