Regulating the Tensile Properties of a Nano‐Lamellar Austenitic Stainless Steel via Cryogenic Electropulsing

Electropulsing treatment (EPT) in the liquid nitrogen (LN) circumstances, referred to as LN-EPT, is utilized to regulate the microstructure and tensile properties of a cold-rolled 316L austenitic stainless steel. The electropulsing effects between the samples treated in the ambient environment at room temperature (RT) and in the LN temperature are compared. The results confirm that the LN-EPT-processed samples can also realize a fully recrystallized microstructure, and even the Joule heat is significantly suppressed compared with the RT-EPT samples. The tensile properties of the LN-EPT samples show both higher yield strength and higher ultimate strength while keeping considerable elongations compared with the RT-EPT samples because of the finer recrystallized structure in the LN-EPT samples. This attempt of LN-EPT may shed some new light on developing the cryogenic electropulsing-assisted forming methods for metals in the future.