Estimation of the kinetics of martensitic transformation in austenitic stainless steels by conventional and novel approaches

A comparative study was carried out on the kinetics of the martensitic transformation in a 304L stainless steel during cold rolling by conventional and novel approaches. The phase analysis based on X-ray diffraction patterns and metallography and also magnetic measurements based on ferritescope readings were utilized to elucidate the kinetics of the martensitic transformation. A straightforward magnetic measurement approach for evaluating the amount of strain-induced martensite in metastable austenitic stainless steels has been introduced in this study. This technique collects the data throughout the bulk of the material to give a realistic estimate of the amount of ferromagnetic martensite. This is an advantage over the surface collecting methods such as ferritescope readings, which overestimates the amount of martensite due to its inhomogeneous distribution through the thickness based on the frictional effects between the rolls and the specimen surface. The proposed approach can be applied in various designs for static/continuous magnetic measurement of bulk materials that is advantageous compared with the conventional vibrating sample magnetometer technique which is useful for static measurement of bulk materials with specific shapes. Moreover, in analogy to ferritescope, the output data of the developed device is directly related to the amount of martensite.