The performance of stainless steel at low temperatures is good or not, which is a more important aspect for product application. So what is the performance of austenitic stainless steel and ferritic stainless steel at low temperature?

In the low-temperature state, the phenomenon that the deformation energy of stainless steel is small, the elongation rate and the shortening rate of the section decrease are called low-temperature embrittlement. Since ferritic stainless steel has a body-centered cubic structure when its performance changes from strong to weak, sharp cracks will rapidly expand and form low-temperature embrittlement. Austenitic stainless steel has a face-centered cubic structure, and this phenomenon does not occur.

Cryogenic processing refers to the quenching of martensitic stainless steel from the austenitizing temperature to a very low temperature in a low-temperature state, so as to promote the quenching method to produce martensite, which is suitable for the easy production of retained austenite structure stainless steel.

The resistance, linear expansion coefficient, thermal conductivity, and mass heat capacity of stainless steel will decrease at low temperature, and the longitudinal elastic modulus will increase with the decrease of temperature.

Austenitic stainless steel has low-temperature performance, and martensitic structure will be produced at low temperature. The representative steel grade 304 stainless steel of austenitic stainless steel is non-magnetic at room temperature, but it becomes magnetic at low temperature.

304L stainless steel and 316L stainless steel in the austenitic stainless steel series are low-carbon stainless steels, which can still maintain the original performance at low temperatures, and become more resistant to low temperatures due to low temperatures. However, pay attention to the precipitation of ferrite structure or martensite structure due to processing, and there is a tendency to embrittlement due to the precipitation of carbides or σ-equivalent phases due to sensitization treatment.

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