Effect of the nanostructuring by high-pressure torsion process on the secondary phase precipitation in UNS S32750 Superduplex stainless steel

In this work, the precipitation and the morphology of secondary phases after severe plastic deformation (SPD) processing followed by an isothermal treatment was investigated. High-pressure torsion (HPT) was the SPD process carried out on superduplex 2507 (UNS S32750) stainless steel material under P = 6 GPa at room temperature. At this high strain levels (ε up to 170) samples have shown grain size decrease and strained microstructure with high dislocation density and nanostructure features. After a short isothermal treatment at 830 °C, the sigma phase and chromium nitrides were revealed as the main secondary phases identified by scanning and transmission electron microscopy and element analysis by energy dispersive spectroscopy. Scanning precession electron diffraction and automated crystal orientation mapping have been carried out in order to confirm the precipitation of the secondary phases. In fact, the results provide evidence that the precipitation of chromium nitrides seems to be the preferred nucleation site for sigma phase at higher deformation strain, in addition to the intergranular precipitation of sigma. Both the sigma phases nucleated integranularly and besides chromium nitrides are randomly orientated.