Heat treatments applied to different families of stainless steels
Heat treatments for stainless steels

Their fully martensitic structure gives these steels high yield strength, toughness and hardness. However, their ductility is less than that of ferritic or austenitic stainless steels; to improve it, martensitic stainless steels generally undergo a more or less pronounced tempering treatment.

Like all stainless steels, martensitic stainless steels contain at least 11% chromium.

The martensitic structure can be obtained by adding carbon or nickel.

Carbon can be added up to 1.4%. This element greatly increases the steel's hardness, as on the one hand it increases the martensite's hardness, and on the other it causes carbides to form. Carbon can be partially replaced by nitrogen....