Developing a novel austenitic stainless steel with high yield strength and coefficient of thermal expansion

A novel type of austenitic stainless steel with a high yield strength (YS) of 1075 MPa, ultimate tensile strength of 1257 MPa and total elongation of 17.3% was designed. The high YS was mainly due to the composite precipitation strengthening via a large number of Cu and VC nanoparticles, and VC precipitates provided the dominant contribution. The good ductility could be attributed to the twinning-induced plasticity effect and nanoparticles. The steel has the highest coefficient of thermal expansion (20.5 ppm/K) among conventional iron-based alloys. The newly developed steel demonstrates exceptional applicability for shrink-fit holder in high-speed machine tools.