Effect of Normalizing Treatment on Mechanical Properties of AISI 441 Stainless Steel Prepared by Investment Casting

Abstract

In this paper, AISI 441 stainless steel was investigated as a casting steel using the investment casting process (ICP). The microstructure and mechanical properties of the as-cast and normalizing treatment samples were analyzed. The results show that the tensile strength of as-cast AISI 441 prepared by ICP is 458 MPa, and the elongation is 22.7%. Normalizing treatment can improve the mechanical performance of AISI 441 prepared by ICP, but strength and elongation have a slightly decreasing trend with increasing normalizing temperature and time. The suitable normalizing treatment condition is 850 °C for 2 h. It was found that normalizing temperature and time have little effect on grain size and carbonitride. There was an increasing trend in the mean equivalent length (MEL) of the Laves phase as normalizing temperature and time increases. The effect of normalizing treatment on strength increment was mainly related to the change of the Laves phase size.