Retained Austenite: Fast and Reliable Solution for Quality Assurance and Quality Control Practices in Heat Treatments - Application Note

Austenite is a very useful structural constituent of advanced high-strength steels. Its ability for strengthening in many different ways offers possibilities to obtain a unique range of mechanical and technological properties. An especially important feature of austenite phase is its ability to transform to martensite or to form twinned microstructures during straining. The first one is utilized in low alloyed multiphase steels containing from 5 to 15% volume amount of retained austenite. Instead, twinning is a main hardening mechanism in fully austenitic high manganese alloys.