Heat Treatment of martensitic stainless steels is used to increase the hardness that is caused by several microstructure changes. But such a treatment does affect both mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. Existing studies about the effect of austenitizing on the material properties and the corrosion resistance show contradictory results. Here we reveal the different effects of austenitizing on the passive layer of stainless steel and thus the corrosion resistance, thermodynamic phase calculations, microstructure investigations and various electrochemical measurements are performed. By potentiodynamic polarization scans the pitting potential, the critical pitting potential and the corrosion current are determined. Impedance spectroscopy are used to gain deeper insight into the passive layer properties. The results show a strong dependency of the corrosion behavior on the heat treatment where the governing corrosion mechanism are affected differently.

The development of novel structural materials with increasing mechanical requirements is a very resource-intense process if conventional methods are used. While there are high-throughput methods for the development of functional materials, this is not the case for structural materials. Their mechanical properties are determined by their microstructure, so that increased sample volumes are needed. Furthermore, new short-time characterization techniques are required for individual samples which do not necessarily measure the desired material properties, but descriptors which can later be mapped on material properties. While universal micro-hardness testing is being commonly used, it is limited in its capability to measure sample volumes which contain a characteristic microstructure. We propose to use alternative and fast deformation techniques for spherical micro-samples in combination with classical characterization techniques such as XRD, DSC or micro magnetic methods, which deliver descriptors for the microstructural state.

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