Forming operation of metastable austenitic stainless steel and inductive recrystallization of strain induced martensite

The temperature assisted recrystallization of strain induced martensite, after deep drawing metastable austenitic stainless steels, is a well known process for increasing the formability through multi-level deep drawing applications. State of the art recrystallization processes, using continuous annealing or vacuum furnaces, have the disadvantage of variable grain growth over the part cross section. This paper shows how the heat treatment by using an electro magnetical field, provided through different types of induction coils, can affect material properties positively. The studies were carried out on AISI 304 specimens with varied strain rates