Influence of Variation of Aging Heat Treatment Condition on Phase Transformation and Mechanical Properties of 15-5PH Stainless Steel

This study is to investigate the relationship between microstructural factors and tensile properties after aging heat treatment of the 15-5PH stainless steel at the temperature range of $450^{\circ}C$, $500^{\circ}C$ and $550^{\circ}C$ for various time. For the aging time of 2 hours, hardness showed maximum at $450^{\circ}C$ and then decreased with increasing aging temperature. While, hardness decreased gradually during aging $450^{\circ}C$, $500^{\circ}C$ and $550^{\circ}C$ from 1 hour to 5 hours but the hardness nearly unchanged until the 100 hours after 5 hours aging. When aging at $450^{\circ}C$, Cu atoms preferentially aggregated at the prior austenite grain boundaries and martensite lath boundaries, and Cu concentration at those boundaries was nearly unchanged even after aging for 100 hours. Therefore it was suggested that the coherency is still maintained after 100 hours aging at $450^{\circ}C$. Aging at $500^{\circ}C$ and $550^{\circ}C$ results in an increase in the concentration of Ni at the martensite lath boundaries and prior austenite grain boundaries, resulting in the formation of reversed austenite. Especially, when aged at $550^{\circ}C$ for 100 hours, the concentration of Ni remarkably increased at those boundaries, and thus the microstructure of herring bone shape was appeared. Considering the migration of Ni atom to the lath boundaries and prior austenite grain boundaries, Ni atoms contributed greatly to the formation of reversed austenite. On the other hand, it was found that Cu atoms hardly moving to those boundaries may not be contributed to the formation of reversed austenite. When aging at $450^{\circ}C$, the coarsening of the precipitated Cu atoms proceeded very slowly with increasing aging time, therefore the decrease in strengths were small but the reduction area was considerably increased due to the softening of the matrix. At the aging temperature of $500^{\circ}C$ and $550^{\circ}C$, the strengths decreased and the elongation and reduction area increased due to the appearance of the reversed austenite. Especially, the increase of reduction area was remarkable.

15-5PH 스테인리스강의 시효열처리 조건변화가 상변태 및 기계적 성질에 미치는 영향