Influence of grain size on ultrasonic spectral parameters in AISI type 316 stainless steel

Abstract

The grain size of a material is an important engineering parameter which influences the mechanical properties such as fatigue, creep, yield strength, impact transition temperature, etc. The reliability of the ultrasonic methods for grain size measurement, particularly amplitude based measurements are highly dependent upon the couplant condition. Therefore, application of these methods may be difficult for some practical applications, where uniform couplant condition can not be maintained. Therefore, it would be useful if a simplified method is developed, which could be used on-line and is free from the above mentioned limitations of the other methods. The shift in the spectral peak frequency has been used for microstructural characterization in carbon steel and for evaluation of structural variations induced by tensile deformation in SUS304 stainless steel. The spectral peak frequency in SUS304 steel was found to increase with increase in the tensile elongation. This was attributed to formation and growth of martensite structures due to tensile deformation resulting in smaller crystalline grains, thus reducing the attenuation due to ultrasonic scattering. The peak frequency has also been found to shift with the change in the grain size in Inconel 600 and copper. In the present study, the shift in the spectral peak frequency and the change in full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the autopower spectrum are correlated with the grain size in AISI type 316 austenitic stainless steel, a widely used structural material in nuclear, chemical, fertilizer and many other industries.