Effects of asymmetric rolling process on ridging resistance of ultra-purified 17%Cr ferritic stainless steel

In ferritic stainless steels, a significant non-uniform recrystallization orientation and a substantial texture gradient usually occur, which can degrade the ridging resistance of the final sheets. To improve the homogeneity of the recrystallization orientation and reduce the texture gradient in ultra-purified 17%Cr ferritic stainless steel, in this work, we performed conventional and asymmetric rolling processes and conducted macro and micro-texture analyses to investigate texture evolution under different cold-rolling conditions. In the conventional rolling specimens, we observed that the deformation was not uniform in the thickness direction, whereas there was homogeneous shear deformation in the asymmetric rolling specimens as well as the formation of uniform recrystallized grains and random orientation grains in the final annealing sheets. As such, the ridging resistance of the final sheets was significantly improved by employing the asymmetric rolling process. This result indicates with certainty that the texture gradient and orientation inhomogeneity can be attributed to non-uniform deformation, whereas the uniform orientation gradient in the thickness direction is explained by the increased number of shear bands obtained in the asymmetric rolling process.

Modification of wettability of stainless steel by picosecond laser surface microstructuring

We report on the modification of the wettability of stainless steel by picosecond laser surface microstructuring in this paper. Compared with traditional methods, picosecond laser-induced surface modification provides a fast and facile method for surface modification without chemical damage and environmental pollution. As a result of treatment by 100 ps laser pulses, microstructures are fabricated on the stainless steel sample surface, contributing to the increase of the contact angle from 88° to 105°, which realizes a transformation from hydrophilicity to hydrophobicity. The morphological features of fabricated microstructures are characterized by scanning electron microscopy and optical microscopy.

Strength Prediction of Aluminum–Stainless Steel-Pulsed TIG Welding–Brazing Joints with RSM and ANN

Pulsed TIG welding–brazing process was applied to join aluminum with stainless steel dissimilar metals. Major parameters that affect the joint property significantly were identified as pulsed peak current, base current, pulse on time,and frequency by pre-experiments. A sample was established according to central composite design. Based on the sample,response surface methodology（RSM） and artificial neural networks（ANN） were employed to predict the tensile strength of the joints separately. With RSM, a significant and rational mathematical model was established to predict the joint strength.With ANN, a modified back-propagation algorithm consisting of one input layer with four neurons, one hidden layer with eight neurons, and one output layer with one neuron was trained for predicting the strength. Compared with RSM, average relative prediction error of ANN was ／10% and it obtained more stable and precise results.

Quantitative Modeling for Corrosion Behavior in Complex Coupled Environment by Response Surface Methodology

Response surface methodology（RSM） is introduced into corrosion research as a tool to assess the effects of environmental factors and their interactions on corrosion behavior and establish a model for corrosion prediction in complex coupled environment（CCE）. In this study, a typical CCE, that is, the corrosion environment of pipelines in gas field is taken as an example. The effects of environmental factors such as chloride concentration, pH value and pressure as well as their interactions on critical pitting temperature（CPT） were evaluated, and a quadratic polynomial model was developed for corrosion prediction by RSM. The results showed that the model was excellent in corrosion prediction with R2= 0.9949. CPT was mostly affected by single environmental factor rather than interaction, and among the whole factors, chloride concentration was the most influential factor of CPT.