A study of dynamic plasticity in austenite stainless steels with a gradient distribution of nanoscale twins.

The dynamic plastic behavior related to the gradient distribution of twin spacing in 304 stainless steel thin wires is investigated experimentally with the strain rate varying from 1 × 10 − 3 /s to 1.5 × 10 4 /s. Such gradient-nanotwinned structures are prepared by surface mechanical attrition treatment. A mechanism-based dynamic plastic model is developed to describe the strain-rate dependent stress-strain response in gradient-nanotwinned austenite stainless steels. A good agreement between experimental data and simulations was achieved, and further theoretical predictions demonstrated that the dynamic plastic behavior is sensitive to the twin spacing and volume fraction of gradient-nanotwinned region in austenite stainless steel wires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]