Effect of shock wave hardening and cold working on mechanical properties of a new high nitrogen steel

Abstract
Nitrogen alloyed austenitic steels are rather novel alloys and are still under development. They can suffer a very high deformation without the austenite becoming unstable. A very high strength can be achieved by work-hardening due to this property. In recently developed alloys, Mn-contents are reduced to about 12% with a nitrogen content of about 1%. Then aim of this work is to investigate a newly developed high nitrogen steel called PANACEA. Both shock wave hardening and cold rolling were used to work-harden the alloy. The plates were shock loaded up to 600 kbar at shock wave duration from 0.5  s to 4  s and cold rolled with a reduction of 80%. Quasi-static and dynamic compression (SHPB) tests were performed to determine the mechanical behaviour prior and after work hardening. The microstructure was studied by optical and scanning electron microscopy.