Deformation-induced martensitic transformation in a 201 austenitic steel: The synergy of stacking fault energy and chemical driving force

The present study deals with the correlation of stacking fault energy's synergy and driving force in the formation of deformation-induced martensitic transformation in a 201 austenitic stainless steel. The fraction of deformation-induced martensite was characterized by means of X-ray diffraction and magnetic induction techniques. The kinetics of the martensite formation versus applied strain was evaluated through the sigmoidal model. It was shown that the volume fraction of ά-martensite is closely related to the driving force/SFE ratio of the alloy. The results also showed that the martensite content is similar in both XRD and magnetic methods and the applied sigmoidal model was consistent with the obtained experimental data.