Effect of long-term thermal aging on the mechanical properties of casting duplex stainless steels

Casting duplex stainless steels (CDSSs) used for pressurized water reactor (PWR) pipes are susceptible to thermal aging brittleness during long-term service at its working temperature from 288 °C to 327 °C. In order to investigate its thermal aging behavior, Z3CN20-09M CDSSs have been thermally aged at 400 °C up to 15,000 h. The micro-hardness of austenite and ferrite phases, conventional tensile properties, impact properties and SPT properties at different aging duration have been measured. The results show that the micro-hardness in ferrite gradually increases with increase of long thermal aging time, while the effect of the long aging time on the micro-hardness in austenite is negligible. The tensile strength and yield strength progressively and slightly increase with the long aging time, respectively. The impact property test confirms that there is the same change tendency as the percentage of elongation which decreases with the long aging time. The changes of SPT ultimate strength, SPT yield strength and SPT specific fracture energy by aging individually show that there is an almost same tendency as the tensile strength, the yield strength and the percentage of elongation with the thermal aging time. All above the mechanical properties changes of Z3CN20-09M CDSSs are associated with the changes of the dislocation configurations in austenite, the precipitation of G-phase on the dislocation line and in ferrite phase, the spinodal decomposition and the coarsening of the spinodally decomposed structure in ferrite after different thermal aging time.

► The micro-hardness change tendency of ferrite and austenite by aging was studied.
► Embrittlement behavior of Z3CN20-09M CDSSs by aging was investigated by SP test.
► The crack propagation energy Wt − Wiu slightly changes with the thermal aging time.
► Spinodal decomposition and spinodally coarsening take place in ferrite by aging.
► Z3CN20-09M CDSSs become embrittlement after long-term thermal aging treatment.