**5. Conclusions**

The effects of cold rolling reduction on the microstructures and mechanical properties of 316LN ASS were studied. The conclusions can be summarized as follows:


In this paper, the increased yield/tensile strength and decreased elongation of CR 316LN ASS are attributed to grain refinement of the untransformed austenite phase and increasing content of strain-induced martensite. However, which of these two factors plays a major role is not clear. We plan to obtain a fully deformation austenite structure and fully strain-induced martensite through controlling rolling temperature and reduction in the next work. The effect of a fully deformation austenite structure or fully strain-induced martensite on the mechanical properties of ASSs will be studied in the next work.

**Author Contributions:** X.W. and G.L., supervisor, conceived and designed the experiments; D.X., doctoral student, conducted experiments, analyzed the data and wrote the paper; J.Y., conducted experiments; G.X., conducted experiments.

**Funding:** This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51501134).

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
