Intervention of martensite variants on the spatial aspect of microvoids

The spatial aspect of microvoids' distribution at different strained austenite grains has been investigated through strain rate variation during tensile deformation of metastable austenitic stainless steel at ambient temperature. Ductile fracture micromechanisms of metastable austenite have been investigated through direct measurements of void density, its fraction and their distribution at various levels of stresses/strains for all strain rates. The nature of the distribution of microvoids' fraction closely corresponds to the local stress-state and strain-state variation and hence is strongly attributed to the crystallographic variant selection of martensite and their spatial nature of distribution. The direct intervention of martensite variants has been looked into for influencing void nucleation, growth and coalescence under tensile deformation of austenitic stainless steel.