Crystallographic variant selection of martensite during fatigue deformation

Metastable austenitic stainless steels are prone to form deformation-induced martensite under the influence of externally applied stress. Crystallographic variant selection during martensitic transformation of metastable austenite has been investigated thoroughly with respect to the interaction between the applied uniaxial cyclic stress and the resulting accumulated plastic strain during cyclic plastic deformation. The orientation of all the Kurdjomov–Sachs (K-S) variants has been evaluated extensively and compared with the measured orientation of martensite with their corresponding interaction energies by applying the elegant transformation texture model recently developed by Kundu and Bhadeshia. Encouraging correlation between model prediction and experimental data generation for martensite pole figures at many deformed austenite grains has been observed. It has been found that both the applied uniaxial cyclic stress and the accumulated plastic strain are having strong influence on crystallographic variant selection during cyclic plastic deformation. Patel and Cohen’s classical theory can be utilized to predict the crystallographic variant selection, if it is correctly used along with the phenomenological theory of martensite crystallography.