Evolution and Characterisation of ASS 316L at Elevated Temperature.

Austenitic Stainless-Steel grade 316 L is one of the huge ASS grades used in different industry sectors, nuclear power plants and pharmaceutical applications. Because of these various applications at high temperature, it is a must to know its properties at different conditions. The present work focued on to improve the mechanical properties, like ultimate tensile strength (UTS), yield strength (YS), strain hardening exponent (n) and % elongation. These are assessed depending on the test information obtained from the uniaxial isothermal tensile tests. A total of 27 tests based on fullfactorial designed to performe temperature at 750°C, 825°C and 900°C, three orientations (0, 45, 90) degrees to the rolling direction and strain rates (0.1, 0.01 and 0.001 s⁻¹) were chosen. From the experimental results, it is clear that temperature and strainrate has a significant effect on material properties. With the rise in temperature, % elongation increases and a considerable decline in strength was observed. The scanning electron microscope and microstructural analysis was carried out at elevated temperatures to type of fracture. From ANOVA analysis, it was observed that temperature for UTS, combine temperature * strain rate for YS and strain rate*strain rate for % elongation with 85.889%, 38.93 and 65.73% contribution respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]