Duplex stainless steels are two-phase alloys, which contain ferritic and austenitic phases in their microstructure. Their duplex structure provides exceptional resistance to pitting and chloride stress corrosion cracking, and their strength is about twice that of austenitic stainless steels. Due to their good properties, they are widely used in chemical and petrochemical industries as a base material in pressure vessels, pipelines and containers. Duplex stainless steel samples were nondestructively investigated by measuring sets of magnetic minor hysteresis loops using the method called magnetic adaptive testing (MAT). Several series of heat-treated and cold-rolled 2507 duplex stainless steels were measured, and the magnetic parameters were compared with the results of the DC magnetometry of the samples. It was found that the changes in the material properties that were generated by heat treatment and mechanical deformation could easily be followed by magnetic measurements. In contrast to DC magnetic measurements, good correlation was found with the magnetic parameters determined by MAT method and Vickers hardness. Based on our experiments, MAT seems to be a powerful tool for the nondestructive characterization of duplex stainless steels.
Keywords: DC magnetometer; duplex stainless steel; magnetic adaptive testing; nondestructive magnetic testing.