Influence of dislocation glide on the spinodal decomposition of fatigued duplex stainless steels

The present work is focused on assessing the influence of dislocation movement on spinodal decomposition through scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) in combination with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analysis in aged duplex stainless steel (DSS) S32750. Dislocation bands and microbands are the prominent dislocation arrangements observed in fatigue tested aged samples. By EDS measurements it was found that the spinodal decomposition was dissolved inside these dislocations structures. Therefore, the mechanism of microband formation developed in the ferritic phase during cycling seems to be responsible for the demodulation of the spinodal decomposition and cyclic softening of the aged DSS.