Low cycle fatigue behavior of powder metallurgy stainless steel/Mg-PSZ composite materials

This research work presents the low cycle fatigue behavior of powder metallurgy stainless steel/Mg-PSZ composite materials. The steel matrix is made of a conventional AISI 304 stainless steel. The ceramic reinforcement consists of MgO (8 mol%) partially stabilized zirconia (Mg-PSZ). The unreinforced steel and composite materials containing 5 vol% and 10 vol% Mg-PSZ, respectively, were produced using hot pressing. The different materials were studied under total strain control at different strain amplitudes in order to clarify the influence of the ceramic reinforcement on the low cycle fatigue behavior. Microstructure investigations were performed to study the resulting deformation structures within the steel matrix and ceramic reinforcement, respectively.