Comparison of damaging behavior of oxide scales grown on austenitic stainless steels using tensile test and cyclic thermogravimetry

Two austenitic stainless steels, AISI 304L and AISI 303, were submitted to cyclic oxidation and to static mechanical loading after isothermal oxidation at 1000 °C. Alloy 303 contains ten times more S than 304L and some Mn addition. During the steel process, it formed manganese sulfides that lead to the formation of a less resistant oxide scale. Both alloys showed similar behavior during thermal cycling but breakaway oxidation and intensive spallation occurred much sooner for alloy 303 than for alloy 304L. A correlation could be drawn between tensile test on preoxidized samples, isothermal and cyclic oxidation.