Microstructure of AISI 304 stainless steel strips produced by a twin-roll caster

By optical inspection of macro-etched metallography and electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD) mapping, this paper analyzed the microstructure of austenitic stainless steel strips produced with an equal-diameter twin-roll strip caster. The results indicate that the microstructure of the strips includes two columnar zones with highly compact dendrites and one equiaxed zone. The characteristics, such as grain size and growing direction of columnar grains and equiaxed grains, were investigated. An additional transitional area with many finer grains between the columnar zone and the equiaxed zone was found. As shown in EBSD analysis, small angle boundaries exist both in the columnar zone and the equiaxed zone, although they are especially more in the transitional area. Additionally, some 〈111〉 twin boundaries were found in the microstructure of the strips.