Healing Behavior of Micropores in Powder Metallurgy 316L Stainless Steel during Hot Forging and Heat Treatment

The healing behavior of micropores in powder metallurgy (P/M) 316L stainless steel during hot forging and subsequent heat treatment was studied. The results showed that hot forging can improve the homogeneity of the pore size and enhance the relative density of material in varying degree due to different forging temperatures. As a result of deformation and diffusion bonding at high temperature, the irregular pores were spheroidized and finally turned into stable inner grain pores. The comparison of compression behavior between P/M and wrought dense materials has shown that the pores can either be the obstacles of dislocation movement or be the nucleation sites accelerating the recrystallization according to the difference of deformation temperatures.