Analysis of Intergranular Precipitation in Isothermally Aged Nitrogen-Containing Austenitic Stainless Steels by an Electrochemical Method and Its Relation to Cryogenic Toughness.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Materials Science and Engineering Volume 2011, Article ID 210209, 7 pages doi:10.1155/2011/210209 Research Article Analysis of Intergranular Precipitation in Isothermally Aged Nitrogen-Containing Austenitic Stainless Steels by an Electrochemical Method and Its Relation to Cryogenic Toughness ˜ 1 1 1 Maribel L. Saucedo-Munoz, Victor M. Lopez-Hirata, Hector J. Dorantes-Rosales, and Erika O. Avila-Davila2 1 Metallurgy Department, Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Apartado Postal 75-556, 07300 Mexico, DF, Mexico 2 Metal-Mechanics Department, Instituto Tecnologico de Pachuca, 42080 Pachuca de Soto, HGO, Mexico Correspondence should be addressed to Victor M. Lopez-Hirata, vlopezhi@.mx Received 14 May 2011; Revised 9 September 2011; Accepted 12 September 2011 Academic Editor: Daolun Chen ˜ Copyright © 2011 Maribel L. Saucedo-Munoz et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The precipitation process in two N-containing austenitic stainless steels, aged at temperatures between 873 and 1173 K for times from 10 to 1000 min, was analyzed by an electrochemical method based on the anodic polarization test with an electrolyte of 1 N KOH solution. The anodic polarization curves showed the following intergranular precipitation sequence: austenite → austen- ite + Cr C → austenite + Cr C + Cr N. Besides, the fastest precipitation kinetics was detected in the aged ste