EBSD study of a hot deformed austenitic stainless steel

The microstructural evolution of a 304 H austenitic stainless steel subjected to hot compression was studied by the electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) technique. Detailed data about the boundaries, coincidence site lattice (CSL) relationships and grain size were acquired from the orientation imaging microscopy (OIM) maps. It was found that twins play an important role in the nucleation and growth of dynamic recrystallization (DRX) during hot deformation. Moreover, the conventional discontinuous DRX (DDRX) was found to be in charge of grain refinement reached under the testing conditions studied. Furthermore, the recrystallized fraction (X) was determined from the grain average misorientation (GAM) distribution based on the threshold value of 1.55°. The frequency of high angle boundaries showed a direct relationship with X. A time exponent of 1.11 was determined from Avrami analysis, which was related to the observed single-peak behavior in the stress–strain flow curves.