Formability and fracture studies of austenitic stainless steel 316 at different temperatures

Deep drawing is one of the most important sheet metal forming processes in automotive,aerospace and nuclear industries. In this process, the sheet metal blank is formed into a cup shape by an application of punch into the die. The present work is aimed at studying the formability and the nature of fracture for one of the important materials in industrial applications, austenitic stainless steel 316 at different temperatures. Circular blanks were deep drawn at room temperature, 150 and 300°C using a 20 Ton hydraulic press coupled with a furnace and found that formability of the austenitic stainless steel 316 increased as the temperature was increased. This material underwent dynamic strain aging between 350 and 550°C. Fractured surface of the broken tensile test specimen at different regions were studied and analyzed using scanning electron microscope. It was observed that the nature of the fracture was brittle in dynamic strain aging region.