Synchronous improvement in strength and ductility of Cu-bearing stainless steels through formation of bimodal grain structure induced by short-time electric pulses

Excellent strength and favorable formability are two important mechanical properties of stainless steel, but there is usually a trade-off between both properties. However, it has been suggested in recent studies that preparing microstructures with a non-homogeneous structure can effectively achieve strength-ductility synergy. Given these facts, a microstructure with bimodal grain structures was prepared in this study by short-time electric pulse treatment (EPT). Besides, the evolution of microstructures and mechanical properties of Cu-bearing stainless steel during EPT was analyzed. The results demonstrated that the non-uniform heating in the EPT process can rapidly promote localized grain growth, thus forming a bimodal grain structure compared with conventional heat treatment. The microstructure of the fine grains formed random textures, while the coarsened grains showed stronger textures. After EPT, the amount of S {123} < 634 < 634 >-type textures increased significantly, with the proportion reaching up to 30.1 %. There was also a certain amount of brass {110} < 112 >- and copper {112} < 111 >-type textures. Compared with the solution-treated samples, the best overall mechanical properties were detected under the optimal electric pulse parameters, which ultimately realized a synergistic increase of 11.8 % and 10.2 % in the ultimate tensile strength and ductility. The excellent strength-ductility synergy was closely related to heterogeneous deformation-induced (HDI) strengthening and textures induced by the bimodal grain structure. This finding may provide novel insights for enhancing the formability of biomedical metallic materials.