Magnetic properties of thermal-aged 316 stainless steel and its precipitated phases

The magnetic properties of thermally aged bulk 316 stainless steel and the electrolytically extracted precipitates were measured in a wide temperature range from 5 to 375 K with a magnetic field up to 70 kOe using vibrating sample magnetometer. A substantial increase of the Néel temperature of the Fe–Cr–Ni–Mo alloys to approximately 80–100 K arising from long-term aging was observed. The magnetic transition features of the samples corresponding to zero-field cooling and field cooling were also investigated. The magnetizations in the samples for the two cooling conditions were identical above the transition temperature. However, below that temperature the characteristics exhibited obvious discrepancy between the two samples.