Influence of hot forging and alloying with Al on the electrochemical behavior and mechanical properties of austenitic stainless steel

•A new approach to overcome the deterioration of ductility of ASS has been proposed.•The approach is based on alloying ASS with 4 wt% Al using vacuum induction furnace.•Al alloying improves the hardness and decreases the volume fraction of austenite.•Al alloying has an adverse effect on the corrosion resistance in Cl− media.•Hot forging forms carbide precipitates that decrease the corrosion resistance.

This paper introduces a new approach to overcome the deterioration of ductility of austenitic stainless steel (ASS) by Al alloying using vacuum induction furnace. The available data reported about the addition of Al to ASS shows that Al alloying increases the work-hardening property and deteriorates the ductility due to decreasing the austenite phase and increasing the ferrite phase. Therefore, austempering process was a vital stage to increase the austenite phase. The optimum conditions due to Al alloying have been determined. The promising samples were undergo corrosion tests using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry to investigate their performance and electrochemical behavior. Results showed that hot forging and alloying with Al improve the hardness and ductility but have an adverse effect on the pitting corrosion resistance.