Heat Treatment of SS 316L for Automotive Applications

Stainless steel 316L (SS 316L) is a low carbon-chromium-nickel-molybdenum austenitic stainless steel. Its application in automotive industry include as exhaust housings for catalytic converters and turbocharger. In this research, the tempering heat treatment was conducted by using SS 316L samples. These steels were austenitized at 860°C for 1 hours before doing two tempering process. Austempering was conducted at 360°C for 15 min in the muffle furnace then air cooled while martempering was conducted at 160°C for 15 min in a muffle furnace then quench in water. The corrosion test was carried out using 1.0 M oxalic acid solution for 30 days in room temperature. Hardness test and microstructural observation were carried out for SS 316L before and after corrosion test. Experimental result showed that untreated sample have highest hardness value before and after corrosion test which were 232 HV and 225 HV respectively. The hardness value before corrosion test is 199.7 HV for austempered sample, and 201.3 HV for martempered sample. Untreated sample shows the lowest corrosion rate (0.94×10 -3 mpy), followed by austempered sample (1.89x10 -3 mpy) and the highest corrosion rate is for martempered sample (2.36×10 -3 mpy). After corrosion, under optical microscope observation, martempered steel has more pits than austempered steel. In summary, austempering is the best heat treatment for SS 316L in automotive applications that give high ductility and toughness after heat treatment with high corrosion resistance.