Residual Stress in Ferrite and Austenite after Rolling and Recovery Processes

The relation between residual stresses occurring in plastically deformed material and after subsequent annealing is of practical and theoretical importance. In the present work the X-ray multi-reflection method was applied to determine residual stresses and their orientation distribution in rolled and annealed ferrite and austenite steel samples. An important decrease of the first- and the second-order residual stresses was observed during recovery and recrystallization processes. Diffraction peak width was also studied and correlated with stress variation during annealing. Different kinetics of stress relaxation in ferrite and austenite were explained by different levels of stacking fault energy and different types of intergranular interactions occurring in these materials.