The influence of explosive-driven shock prestraining at 35 GPa and of high deformation on the structure/property behavior of 316 L austenitic stainless steel

The mechanical responses of high-explosive (HE)-driven “Taylor-Wave” shock prestrained, 20 pct quasistatically uniaxially compressed, and 32 pct cross-rolled 316 L austenitic stainless steel (SS) samples were investigated in compression and tension at room temperature. The results of the compression and tension tests were compared to the deformation results of the annealed microstructure at a strain rate of 10−3 s−1. The mechanical behavior of the 316 L SS following explosive shock prestraining exhibits a factor of 2 increase in yield stress over that observed for the annealed material. A significant reduction in ductility due to the Taylor-wave shock prestraining of the 316 L SS was also observed in tension. The microstructure and substructure evolution of the shock-prestrained 316 L SS samples were investigated using optical metallography and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Microstructural analyses revealed a high density of deformation twins following Taylor-wave shock prestraining and cross-rolling to 32 pct strain. These microstructures were compared to those of the 20 pct quasi-statically uniaxially prestrained 316 L SS. The current experimental results were found to agree with previous literature results on SS samples shock-prestrained utilizing “square-topped” and explosive Taylor-wave shock-pulse loading.