**Deming Xu 1,2, Xiangliang Wan 1,2, Jianxin Yu 3, Guang Xu 1,2 and Guangqiang Li 1,2,\***


Received: 14 June 2018; Accepted: 2 July 2018; Published: 6 July 2018

**Abstract:** In this paper, the effect of cold deformation on the microstructures and mechanical properties of 316LN austenitic stainless steel (ASS) was investigated. The results indicated that the content of martensite increased as the cold rolling reduction also increased. Meanwhile, the density of the grain boundary in the untransformed austenite structure of CR samples increased as the cold reduction increased from 10% to 40%, leading to a decreased size of the untransformed austenite structure. These two factors contribute to the improvement of strength and the decrease of ductility. High yield strengths (780–968 MPa) with reasonable elongations (30.8–27.4%) were achieved through 20–30% cold rolling. The 10–30% cold-rolled (CR) samples with good ductility had a good strain hardening ability, exhibiting a three-stage strain hardening behavior.

**Keywords:** austenitic stainless steel; cold deformation; microstructures; mechanical properties
