Why should Stainless Steel Pipe do Solution Treatment?

The austenitic stainless steel is softened by solution treatment. Heating the stainless steel pipe to about 950～1150℃ for a period of time so that carbides and various alloying elements are fully and uniformly dissolved in the austenite, and then quenched and cooled quickly, Carbon and other alloying elements are will keep inside to obtain pure austenite structure, which is called solution treatment.

The role of solution treatment has three points.

1. Make the structure and composition of the steel pipe uniform.

This is raw materials is very important, because the rolling temperature and cooling rate of each section of the hot-rolled wire rod are different, resulting in inconsistent structure. At high temperatures, the atomic activity intensifies, the chemical composition tends to be uniform, and a uniform single-phase structure is obtained after rapid cooling.

2. Eliminate work hardening to facilitate the continued cold working.

Through solution treatment, the distorted crystal lattice is restored, the elongated and broken grains are recrystallized, the internal stress is eliminated, the tensile strength of the steel pipe is reduced, and the elongation rate is increased.

3. Restore the inherent corrosion resistance of stainless steel.The precipitation of carbides and lattice defects due to cold working reduce the corrosion resistance of stainless steel. After solution treatment, the corrosion resistance of the steel pipe is restored to the best state.

In a word, for stainless steel pipes, solution treatment is a very necessary process.