Materials Science and Engineering A 402 (2005) 6675

Effects of nitrogen and high temperature aging on phase

precipitation of duplex stainless steel
Chi-Shang Huang , Chia-Chang Shih
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, I-Shou University 1, Section 1, Hsueh-Cheng Road,
Ta-Hsu Hsiang, Kaohsiung County, Taiwan
Received in revised form 17 March 2005; accepted 29 March 2005

Abstract
Effects of nitrogen and high temperature aging on phase precipitation of duplex stainless steels have been investigated. The precipitation
of phase increases with the increase of aging time. The precipitation rate at 900 C aging is the fastest and that at 700 C aging is the lowest.
The higher the aging temperature, the larger the size of phase precipitates. At the same condition, the more the nitrogen content, the lower
the content of phase in duplex stainless steel.
2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Aging; Phase; Precipitation; Intermetallic phase

1. Introduction
The reason why duplex stainless steel (DSS) can possess
excellent properties is principally because it is influenced by
a phase balance between austenitic phase ( phase) and ferritic phase ( phase). It is generally considered that any of
the two phases which is lower in percentage must not be less
than 30% [1]. Although ferritic phase has better partial corrosion resistance and mechanical strength [2,3], it is liable to
produce phase and has lower ductility, among other disadvantages [4]. On the other hand, austenitic phase has better
ductility, toughness and reducing acid resistance [5,6].
Nitrogen, an austenitic stabilizing element, if added, can
help to stabilize austenitic phase in DSS [7,8]. Addition of
nitrogen will not only increase the mechanical properties of
DSS but also enhance resistance against pitting and crevice
corrosion [8,9].
After aging at high temperature 6001000 C, DSS will
precipitate a number of intermetallic phases, such as phase,
phase,  , M7 C3 , M23 C6 , Cr2 N, etc. [1013], in which
damage of phase is most severe. Not only will phase

Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 7 6577711x3120; fax: +886 7 6578444.

E-mail address: cshuang@isu.edu.tw (C.-S. Huang).

0921-5093/$ see front matter 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.msea.2005.03.111

cause substantial damage to ductility and toughness of steel

material, but it will also undermine corrosion resistance of
DSS [10,13,14].
Preferential growth of the phase into the ferrite is mainly
a result of the higher Cr and Mo concentration in the ferrite matrix [15]. A fundamental reason why the phase
preferentially grows into the ferrite is that the ferrite is thermodynamically metastable at temperature where the phase
precipitates so that the ferrite phase should decompose into
an equilibrium state. The evidence for this comes from the
investigations which have shown that an equilibrium structure is a mixture of and austenite phases in the temperature
range 650900 C [16]. It should be noted that the compositions of the ferrite and phases are very similar, indicating
that growth of phase does not require long-range diffusion
of substitutional alloying elements, such as Cr and Mo. Hard
and brittle, phase increases its precipitation amount with
aging time [17]. Its crystal structure is tetragonal where every
unit contains 32 atoms [18,19]. Rich in chromium and molybdenum, phase easily forms nuclei between grain boundary
and phase boundary and, after that, gradually increases with
aging time and propagates itself toward ferritic phase, similarly rich in chromium and molybdenum, and then annexes
it [10,20]. According to technical literature, by means of

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67

Table 1
Chemical composition of duplex stainless steels used (wt.%)
Sample

Si

Mn

Ni

Cr

Mo

A
B
C

0.02
0.022
0.021

0.41
0.47
0.48

2.04
2.00
2.07

0.021
0.026
0.027

0.0061
0.006
0.006

5.507
5.51
5.51

22.6
22.6
22.6

3.251
3.254
3.25

0.14
0.18
0.22

alloy design deployment, precipitation of phase can be

retarded, including reducing the contents of molybdenum and
chromium, and increasing the contents of nickel and nitrogen
[10,20]. Although decreasing the contents of molybdenum
and chromium can slow down precipitation of phase, it also
undermines pitting resistance in materials, crevice corrosion
resistance, SCC resistance properties and strength resistance,
etc. As a result, this is not an ideal method. If phase
precipitation is reduced by adding nickel, it needs to take
a longer period of aging time before the effect is shown.
Maehara et al. [21] found that Ni accelerated the precipitation kinetics, although the equilibrium volume fraction of
was reduced. The effect of Ni on precipitation kinetics is of
indirect nature and is explicable in terms of the reduction in
the -ferrite fraction prior to aging, leading to a partitioning
of -promoting elements to ferrite, e.g. Cr and Mo. However, this is not the case with nitrogen. Not only will nitrogen
increase DSS strength but it will also enhance crevice corrosion resistance. Therefore, using nitrogen to decelerate
phase precipitation will not have fear of disturbance in the
rear.

2. Experimental procedure
2.1. Material
The specimens used in this research are made using
high-frequency vacuum refinement to deploy 2205 duplex
stainless steel with different nitrogen contents, 0.14, 0.18
and 0.22%, respectively. To begin with, DSS is cut into
small pieces (which must not be powder), which are in turn
immersed in acetone solvent for ultrasonic vibration cleaning to remove grease on the stainless steel. After that, alloy
elements that have been calculated are deployed, including pure iron powder, ferromanganese, ferromolybdenum,
ferrochromium, manganese nitride and pure nickel. After
the alloy composition is calculated and weighed, all alloy
elements are then placed in a crucible pending smelting.
The DSS alloy composition of this research is shown in
Table 1.
For specimens containing different percentages of nitrogen after smelting, parts near the riser and not smooth are
cut, burrs removed and a grinder is used to make their
surface smoother. Then, they are heated in a furnace to
1250 C, and 1.5 h after being kept at constant temperature,
undergo hot forging to forge them to about 3 mm in thickness.

2.2. High-temperature aging treatment

Immediately after undergoing 1100 C 10 min solid
solution treatment, the specimens undergo water quenching.
They are divided in this experiment into four groups each of
which consists of specimens of different nitrogen contents.
The first group is heated to 800 C and kept at constant temperature for 1, 10 and 24 h. The second group is heated to
700 C and kept at constant temperature for 10, 24 and 48 h.
The third group is heated to 900 C and kept at constant temperature for 1, 10 and 24 h. And the fourth group is heated to
950 C and kept at constant temperature for 1, 10 and 24 h.
2.3. Observation and analysis of phase
After aging treatment, the specimens are all ground with
No. 1500 silicon carbide sandpaper, polished with 0.3 m
aluminium oxide powder, placed in clean water and vibrated
ultrasonically for about 1 min before undergoing etching.
The etching solvent adopts 4 g NaOH + 4 g KMnO4 + 100 ml
H2 O (Groesbeck test solvent) [22]. After etching below 75 C
for about 35 min, the specimens are placed under an optical
microscope (OM) for observation of microstructure, while an
image analyzer is used for phase proportional and quantitative
analysis in an attempt to understand how different nitrogen
contents affect the phase precipitation amount caused by
each kind of heat treatment. Because the test solvent adopted
by this research is Grosbeck, under the etching of this solvent
and the aforementioned conditions, austenitic phase and ferritic phase are not affected, whereas phase shows grey and
black [22].
The specimens that have been etched are placed under a
scanning electron microscope (SEM) for observation, where
EDS analysis is conducted for phase in order to understand
whether the alloy composition of phase is a high-chromium
and high-molybdenum phase to verify the existence of
phase.
2.4. XRD analysis
The specimens that have undergone aging treatment
(including 800 C 24 h, 700 C 48 h, 900 C 24 h and
950 C 24 h) are cut into about 1 cm 1 cm pieces. First,
they are ground with No. 1500 silicon carbide sandpaper,
and then undergo X-ray diffraction analysis. The X-ray
diffraction scanning rate of Group B is 2 /min, scanning
angle range 4050 , in order to understand, under the conditions of different nitrogen contents and different heat

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Fig. 2. EDS analysis of phase.

3.1. Phase observation and quantitative analysis after

800 C aging

Fig. 1. Observation of precipitate: (a) OM observation and (b) SEM observation.

treatments, the process of how , and phases grow

and decline.

3. Results and discussion

Because phase precipitates at about 6001000 C, this
experiment will focus its microstructure observation on how
different nitrogen contents under different aging temperatures affect the precipitation behavior of phase, which will
be discussed one by one in each section separately. Fig. 1(a
and b) shows phases observed under the OM and SEM
after 800 C aging, and Fig. 2(a and b) shows EDS analysis
for phase. The results show that phase is a phase rich in
chromium and molybdenum, which corresponds to phase
composition analysis conducted in technical literature [17].
Therefore, the existence and composition of phase can be
proven. The following is divided into four sections to analyze
how DSS of different nitrogen contents precipitates phase
after 800, 700, 900 and 950 C aging, respectively.

Fig. 3(ac) are microstructures of phase precipitating

after DSS of different nitrogen contents is heated to 800 C
and kept at constant temperature for 24 h. Because the test
solvent used in this experiment is Groesbeck [22], a solvent
specially used for displaying phase, in the microstructures,
where grey and black are shown is phase. But under a slight
excess of etching, the colors of all precipitates will be darker.
Under 800 C aging, in addition to phase, there are also
carbide, nitride, phase and phase precipitating, which are
nevertheless very minute and must be placed under SEM or
TEM to be able to be observed clearly. And their total precipitation amount is far less than the phase amount (which can
be observed clearly under OM), so these precipitates have
a far less influence on DSS than does phase. As a result,
in this experiment precipitation of other precipitates will be
neglected.
After easily forming nuclei on the phase or grain boundaries of / and /, phase gradually increases with
aging time and propagates itself into ferritic phase containing more chromium and molybdenum, and then annexes it
[10,17,20,21]. So with DSS under 800 C aging, the phase
will increase with aging time. However, the precipitation of
the phase is decomposed by a ferritic phase eutectoid into
phase and  phase ( +  ) [12,21,2326]. This is
because the growth of phase leads to a depletion in Cr and
Mo and enrichment in Ni of the surrounding ferrite which
becomes consequently instable and transform into austenite [12,13]. On the other hand, the formation of austenite
makes in its turn the surrounding ferrite enriched in Cr and

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69

Fig. 4. Effect of nitrogen content and aging time at 800 C on content in

duplex stainless steel.

Fig. 3. Microstructure of duplex stainless steel after 800 C 24 h aging:

(a) 0.14%, (b) 0.18% and (c) 0.22%.

Mo and depleted in Ni and as result favours phase precipitation [12,13]. This results in the co-precipitation of
and austenite. Therefore, with the increase of phase, 
phase will also increase. And at this moment, ferritic phase
will decrease. From this experiment, it can be observed in
Fig. 4 that the phase indeed will increase with aging time,
in particular in the period from 0 to 10 h, when its precipitation increment is the most. But from 10 to 24 h, the phase

increment tends to slow down. This phenomenon, regardless of nitrogen content, tends to always come to this result,
which does not run counter to the research of predecessors
[17,21].
Fig. 3(ac) accounts for 0.14, 0.18 and 0.22% nitrogen
contents, respectively. Under 800 C aging, comparing these
figures, if given the same aging time, it can be found that the
more the nitrogen content, the less is the phase content. This
is because nitrogen is an austenitic stabilizing element. It will
directly increase the austenitic phase content and decrease
the percentage of ferritic phase in DSS, thereby indirectly
leaving less room for phase after precipitation to develop.
Consequently, the addition of nitrogen content does help slow
down the precipitation rate of phase.
The above can be verified with numerical comparisons by
means of image analysis. As shown in Fig. 4, the phase
indeed will increase with aging time, in particular in the
period 010 h, during which it grows most drastically, but
fortunately, after 1024 h, it tends to slow down. The amount
of the phase precipitating 1 h after aging is not much, which
is because the aging time is too short, making the phase fail
to continue growing. But here, the nitrogen amount has no
great influence on the phase precipitation, the maximum
difference less than 3%. After the aging time increases to 10
and 24 h, nitrogen content has greater effect on slowing down
the phase. As a result, after 800 C aging, the increase of
nitrogen does have a positive effect on retarding the precipitation of phase.
Fig. 5 is an XRD analytical illustration of different nitrogen contents of DSS after being heated to 800 C and kept at
constant temperature for 24 h. From this figure, it is obvious that as the aging time increases to 24 h, the peak of
ferritic phase is led to become lower conspicuously, gradually

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Fig. 5. X-ray diffraction pattern of duplex stainless steel after 800 C 24 h

aging: (a) 0.14%, (b) 0.18% and (c) 0.22%.

deriving phase. This corresponds to the above description

that after precipitation phase will take possession of ferritic phase so as to make ferritic phase content decrease,
which always occurs this way regardless of nitrogen content. However, if compared with the influence of different
nitrogen contents on phase peak under the same heat treatment conditions, it can be observed approximately from this
figure that the peak of the phase of 0.22% N is lower. But
if a detailed understanding of the precipitation of phase in
DSS is to be obtained, it is still necessary to achieve it by
means of image analysis.
3.2. Phase observation and quantitative analysis after
700 C aging

Fig. 6. Microstructure of duplex stainless steel after 700 C 48 h aging:

(a) 0.14%, (b) 0.18% and (c) 0.22%.

Fig. 6(ac) are microstructures of phase precipitates

after DSS of different nitrogen contents are heated to 700 C
and kept at constant temperature for 48 h. The test solvent used here, same with that heated to 800 C, is still
Groesbeck [22], so in the microstructures, where grey and
black or deep colors are shown is phase. After 700 C
aging, the principle of phase precipitation is generally
the same with that after 800 C aging. After precipitating
on phase or grain boundaries, the phase is also liable

to gradually increase with time and propagates itself into

ferritic phase and then annexes it, and its quantity will
increase with aging time [16,17]. But through this experiment, it is found that while temperature is raised to 700 C
and kept at constant temperature within 10 h, no obvious
phase is observed until after 10 h under constant temperature, when more obvious phase can be observed. Therefore, for phase in DSSs timetemperatureprecipitation

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71

Fig. 7. Effect of nitrogen content and aging time at 700 C on content in

duplex stainless steel.

(TTP) graph, its S-curve nose-tip will not be at

700 C.
Same with 800 C aging, under 700 C aging there still
will be carbide, nitride, phase and  phase [11,23] precipitates, which are all neglected here as well. Under 700 C
aging, it is also ferritic phase eutectoid which decomposes
into phase and  phase ( +  ) [12,23]. As a result,
with the increase of phase, the ferritic phase will also
decrease. From Fig. 6, if temperature continues to be kept
until after 48 h, it can be found that phase mushrooms like
bamboo shoots after a spring rain. However, from the result of
image analysis (Fig. 7), it is found that although before 10 h
under constant temperature there is still no phase emerging,
between 10 and 48 h, phase content increases significantly,
in particular nitrogen content 0.14%, which increases most.
However, under 700 C aging, the trend of phase slowing
down is still not definite within 48 h after aging, which is
much slower than it is under 800 C aging. As a result, under
700 C aging, phase precipitates not only more slowly than
under 800 C aging, but its precipitation saturation is also
slower.
Fig. 6(ac) accounts for 0.14, 0.18 and 0.22% nitrogen
contents, respectively. Under 700 C aging, if given the same
aging time, it can be found obviously from the figures that the
more the nitrogen content, the less phase content, which is
the same with the phase precipitation after 800 C aging,
both of which increase the content of austenitic phase directly
by adding nitrogen to lower the percentage of ferritic phase
in DSS, thereby indirectly leaving little room for phase
to develop after precipitation. However, if compared with
nitrogen after 700 and 800 C aging, the effect of phase
precipitation slowing down can already be found obviously
from microstructures (Fig. 6(ac)). After 700 C aging and

Fig. 8. X-ray diffraction pattern of duplex stainless steel after 700 C 48 h

aging: (a) 0.14%, (b) 0.18% and (c) 0.22%.

under the same aging time, the more the nitrogen content,
the less its phase content, which is the same with 800 C
aging but which is more obvious than after 800 C aging.
Furthermore, through numerical comparisons by means of
image analysis, as shown in Fig. 4, under 800 C aging, nitrogen content rises from 0.14 to 0.22%, and under aging time
10 h, the maximum difference is about 7%, and under 24 h,
about 10%. However, under 700 C aging, as shown in Fig. 7,
although the maximum difference is only about 3% under
aging time 10 h, by 24 h the maximum difference has already
reached about 16%, and as the distance is increasingly bigger, by 48 h the maximum difference reaches as high as 23%.
As a result, under 700 C aging, the effect of phase slowing down is better than under 800 C aging. But under XRD
analysis (Fig. 8), after 0.18% N and 0.22% N DSS undergoes 700 C 48 h aging, no obvious phase peak is found.
In contrast, 0.14% N DSS has obvious phase emerging,
and its ferritic phase peak also drops remarkably. Therefore,
for high nitrogen content DSS and lower nitrogen content
DSS after 700 C aging, the difference in phase precipitation is considerably huge. The cause might be that for
DSS under the same alloy composition, the higher the temperature, the more the ferritic phase; by contrast, the lower
the temperature, the more stable is the percentage of both
phases.

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C.-S. Huang, C.-C. Shih / Materials Science and Engineering A 402 (2005) 6675

Fig. 10. X-ray diffraction pattern of duplex stainless steel after 900 C
24 h aging: (a) 0.14%, (b) 0.18% and (c) 0.22%.

Fig. 9. Microstructure of duplex stainless steel after 900 C 1 h aging: (a)

0.14%, (b) 0.18% and (c) 0.22%.

3.3. Phase observation and quantitative analysis after

900 C aging
Fig. 9(ac) are microstructures of phase precipitates
after DSS of different nitrogen contents is heated to 900 C
and kept at constant temperature for 1 h. The test solvent here
is also Groesbeck [22], so in the microstructures, where grey
and black are shown is phase. Here, same with 800 and

700 C aging, precipitation of other minute precipitates is

still neglected. After 900 C aging, phase, which has precipitated on the phase boundaries or grain boundaries of /
and /, is increasingly growing with time, propagates itself
into ferritic phase and then annexes it. The phase quantity increases with aging time [16,17]. From Fig. 9, it can be
found that under 900 C aging, just by keeping temperature
constant for an hour, the phase has already mushroomed
in precipitation, and its quantity is very huge. The trend is
always thus regardless of nitrogen content, an extreme difference from the phase precipitating after 700 C 1 h.
However, under 900 C, the grain size of phase is bigger
than under 700 and 800 C. The cause might be that 900 C
higher than 800 and 700 C, the solute atoms expand faster,
making the phase bigger [27]. From XRD analysis, it may
also be found (Fig. 10) that after 900 C 24 h aging, regardless of nitrogen content, the phase peak is also emerging.
Therefore, under authentication of XRD, the existence of
phase can be verified. On the other hand, viewed from image
analysis (Fig. 11), precipitation of phase after 900 C 1 h,
regardless of nitrogen content, has already reached about
20%, two times that after 800 C 1 h. However, between
1 and 10 h, phase precipitation only increases by 10%,
and during this period the precipitation amount of phase
is only half that under 800 C aging. But after 10 h aging,

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73

because high nitrogen content has more austenitic phase,

the areas of austenitic phase transforming into ferritic phase
become more. By contrast, because low nitrogen content has
less austenitic phase, the quantity of austenitic phase morphing into ferritic phase is lower. As a result, this may cause the
percentages of the two phases of DSS to be at a tug of war
under high temperature. At last, under the temperature, the
percentages of both phases are led to have little difference,
making the method of increasing nitrogen content less effective in influencing the amount of phase than under 700 and
800 C aging, and leading to little difference in the percentages of both phases of high nitrogen content and low nitrogen
content DSS. Therefore, increasing nitrogen to lower ferritic
phase percentage so as to reduce phase content is like under
800 and 700 C aging, under this temperature the efficiency
will be lower.
3.4. Phase observation and quantitative analysis after
950 C aging
Fig. 11. Effect of nitrogen content and aging time at 900 C on content in
duplex stainless steel.

the phase precipitation is near saturation, similar to that

under 800 C aging. Therefore, it might be argued that under
900 C, although the phase precipitation rate is faster than
it is under 800 and 700 C aging, it loses its vigor later and
slows down after 1 h aging. So in the initial stage of 900 C
aging, the precipitation and growth strength of phase are
considerably high. Fortunately, however, in the later stage
(after 10 h) of aging, the phase precipitation tends to slow
down. From the research of these experiments and its predecessors [27], it can be determined that in the TTP graph, the
nose-tip of the S-curve of the phase precipitation of type
2205 DSS should be somewhere near 900 C.
Fig. 9(ac) accounts for 0.14, 0.18 and 0.22% nitrogen
contents, respectively. Under 900 C aging, if given the same
aging time, obviously, it is impossible from these figures to
compare what influence the nitrogen content has on the precipitation amount of phase. In other words, if given the
microstructures as proofs, previously under 800 and 700 C
aging, the precipitation method of increasing nitrogen content to retard phase content is more difficult to work out
here. To collect numerical statistics by image analysis, there
are three kinds of nitrogen contents. Under 900 C aging,
aging time from 0 to 10 h, nitrogen content does not have any
influence on the precipitation amount of phase. Not until
after 24 h is there some slight difference. As a result, as is
shown by these proofs, the efficiency of nitrogen decelerating the precipitation of phase content is much lower than
under 700 and 800 C aging.
Because DSS will gradually increase in its ferritic phase
above 800 C and it does not stop rising with time until it
reaches certain high temperature where all becomes ferritic
phase, austenitic phase is made to become less relatively.
The reason might be that after temperature reaches 900 C,

Fig. 12(ac) are microstructures of phase precipitates

after DSS of different nitrogen contents are heated to 950 C
and kept at constant temperature for 24 h. From these figures,
it can be found that phase still increases and coarsens with
aging. Fig. 13 is an XRD analysis after 950 C 24 h aging.
From the XRD analysis, it can be further verified that under
950 C aging, regardless of nitrogen content, there is always
phase precipitating. From the microstructures, it can be
found that compared with aging after 1 h, phase content is
already lower than that under 900 C 1 h aging. This shows
that 950 C aging is already above the precipitation nose-tip
of phases TTP graph, so its initial phase precipitation
strength can no longer be compared with that under 900 C
aging. However, under the aging temperature, it can be found
that the phase type is more complete, coarser and bigger,
unlike the more broken phase grains obtained under 700 and
800 C aging. For this, there could be two reasons: first, under
950 C aging,  phase of type 3 will not precipitate, and no
matter what type  phase is, under 950 C aging, no  phase
will precipitate (type 1 lower than 650 C, type 2 between 650
and 800 C and type 3 between 700 and 900 C). Therefore,
for the original ferritic phase under 950 C aging, phase
precipitation, which should be like ordinary stainless steel
phase, transforms only from ferritic phase into phase, but
unlike the complicated phenomenon under 700 and 800 C,
where the original ferritic phase decomposes into phase,
 phase and residual ferritic phase. From the illustration, it
may also be found that under the condition of a little over
corrosion, ferritic phase will be displayed slightly, while
phase almost take full possession of the ferritic phase and its
shape is very complete. Another possibility is that as 950 C
is higher than 700, 800 and 900 C, under high temperature
the diffusion rate of solute atoms is higher so as to make
phase become coarse [27].
After precipitation, phase will gradually coarsen with
time and then annex ferritic phase. As for what influence

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C.-S. Huang, C.-C. Shih / Materials Science and Engineering A 402 (2005) 6675

Fig. 13. X-ray diffraction pattern of duplex stainless steel after 950 C 24 h
aging: (a) 0.14%, (b) 0.18% and (c) 0.22%.

Fig. 12. Microstructure of duplex stainless steel after 950 C 24 h aging:

(a) 0.14%, (b) 0.18% and (c) 0.22%.

nitrogen has on phase precipitation, it can be observed

from the microstructures (Fig. 12(ac) accounts for 0.14, 0.18
and 0.22%, respectively). Under the aging temperature, it is
obvious that the amount of nitrogen content does not tend
to decrease. Using image analysis to understand relations
between phase and nitrogen content under this temperature, as shown in Fig. 14, it is found that after 1 and 10 h
aging, the amount of nitrogen content cannot obviously slow

Fig. 14. Effect of nitrogen content and aging time at 950 C on content in
duplex stainless steel.

C.-S. Huang, C.-C. Shih / Materials Science and Engineering A 402 (2005) 6675

down phase precipitation, which must wait until after 24 h,

when there is slight difference. Speculation on this cause
has already been made in Section 3.3. Consequently, like
under 900 C aging, under this temperature, if phase is to
be slowed down by adding nitrogen, the effect will not be
obvious.

[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]

4. Conclusions
(1) phase is a phase rich in chromium and molybdenum.
Its quantity will increase with aging time. In the process,
under 800 and 900 C aging, after 10 h, saturation will
be reached, and under 700 C aging, no saturation status
is found within the period of time when this experiment
was conducted.
(2) phase precipitates most rapidly in precipitation rate
under 900 C aging, and most slowly under 700 C aging,
which needs to take as much as 10 h before any trace of
phase is observed.
(3) The higher the aging temperature, the bigger the phase
grains precipitating.
(4) Under the same aging conditions, the higher the nitrogen
content, the lower the phase content in DSS, which is
most obvious under 700 C aging, followed by 800 C,
and under 900 and 950 C aging, this phenomenon is
least obvious. Therefore, slowing down phase precipitation by adding nitrogen is most effective under 700 C,
whereas the effect is not obvious under 900 and 950 C.
(5) Although DSS will have phase precipitating after hightemperature aging and then cause an uneven distribution
of chromium and molybdenum, there still will be a selfrecovery. The self-recovery of 800 C aging specimens
occurs 1024 h, that of 900 C aging specimens 110 h
and that of 700 C aging specimens needs as long as
2448 h to take place.

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20]

[21]
[22]
[23]
[24]
[25]

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