Acoustic Emission and Infrared Thermography Study of Low Strain Tensile Behaviour of AISI 304L Stainless Steel

In-situ study of deformation behaviour and mechanisms occurring during early stages of deformation is of a great practical importance. Low stacking fault energy materials, as is the case of AISI 304L, show non-linear deformation characteristics way below the bulk yield point. Shockley partial dislocations, formation of stacking faults respectively, resulting in creation of shear bands and ε-martensite transformation are the mechanisms occurring in the low strains in the studied steel. Acoustic emission and infrared thermography have been used in this study to investigate the deformation kinetics at the low strain stages of slow strain rate tensile tests. Acoustic emission cumulative energy together with the tracking of specimen maximum temperature have been found to be very useful in-situ techniques both supplementing each other in the sense of the sensitivity to different mechanisms. Mechanical, acoustic emission and infrared thermography results are discussed in detail with respect to potential occurred mechanism.

---

This work was financed by grant agency VEGA1/0510/20; KEGA 011ZU4/2022. This publication is the result of support under the Operational Program Integrated Infrastructure for the project: Strategic implementation of additive technologies to strengthen the intervention capacities caused by the COVID-19 pandemic ITMS code: 313011ASY4, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund. The work was also supported by the European Regional Development Fund in the Research Centre of Advanced Mechatronic Systems project, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000867 within the Operational Programme Research, Development and Education and the project SP2021/27 Advanced methods and technologies in the field of machine and process control supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Czech Republic. The support is acknowledged.