INVESTIGATION OF SECONDARY PHASES EFFECT ON 2205 DSS FRACTURE TOUGHNESS

It is well known that the fracture toughness of DSS is strongly reduced by the precipitation of various intermetallic phases occurring in the temperature range 600-1000 degrees C. A large decrease in impact fracture toughness occurs even at room temperature for volume fractions of intermetallic phases lower than 1%, when only small and rare particles are present. In the present investigation, the influence of the intermetallic phases on the impact fracture behaviour of a 2205 grade DSS has been investigated. Samples containing different amounts of the intermetallic phases have been obtained by isothermal aging treatments in the range 800-950 degrees C. The results of the impact tests confirm that the dangerous phase content determine both the toughness and the fracture behaviour of the DSS examined. At content lower than 1%, when precipitates are rare and small, their effect is a reduction of the absorbed energy for the ductile fracture, But the 1% appears as the critical content, when some particles became large enough to operate the nucleation of the brittle fracture. Indeed, at higher content, a number of large particles are present, well sufficient to induce a general brittle fracture. The obtained results allow correlating the absorbed energy values with the intermetallic phases content and dimensions.