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Stainless steel optimization from quantum mechanical calculations

Nature Materials volume 2, pages 25–28 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Alloy steel design has always faced a central problem: designing for a specific property very rarely produces a simultaneous significant improvement in other properties1,2. For instance, it is difficult to design a material that combines high values of two of the most important mechanical characteristics of metals, hardness and ductility. Here we use the most recent quantum theories of random alloys3 to address a similar problem in the design of austenitic stainless steels, namely, to combine high mechanical characteristics with good resistance against localized corrosion. We show that an optimal combination of these basic properties can be achieved in alloys within the compositional range of commercial stainless steels. We predict, first, that Fe58Cr18Ni24 alloys possess an intermediate hardness combined with improved ductility and excellent corrosion resistance, and, second, that osmium and iridium alloying additions will further improve the basic properties of this outstanding class of alloy steels.

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Figure 1: Elastic property maps of austenitic stainless steels.
Figure 2: Austenitic stainless-steel grade Fe-18Cr-24Ni.

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Acknowledgements

The Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research and The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences are acknowledged for financial support. Part of this work was supported by the research project OTKA T035043 of the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund and by the Hungarian Academy of Science and the EC Centre of Excellence program (no. ICA1-CT-2000-70029). The computer simulations were done at the Swedish National Supercomputer Center, Linköping, and Hungarian National Supercomputer Center, Budapest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Applied Materials Physics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, SE-10044, Sweden

    Levente Vitos, Pavel A. Korzhavyi & Börje Johansson

  2. Research Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, Budapest, P.O. Box 49, Hungary, H-1525

    Levente Vitos

  3. Department of Physics, Condensed Matter Theory Group, Box 530, Uppsala University, Uppsala, S-75121, Sweden

    Börje Johansson

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  1. Levente Vitos
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Correspondence to Levente Vitos.

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Vitos, L., Korzhavyi, P. & Johansson, B. Stainless steel optimization from quantum mechanical calculations. Nature Mater 2, 25–28 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat790

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