The identity of expanded austenite as developing during low temperature nitriding and/or carburizing of austenitic stainless steel has been under debate since the very first observation of this phase. In the present article recent results obtained with i) homogeneous samples of various uniform compositions and ii) unraveling of the contributions of stress-depth and composition-depth profiles in expanded austenite layers are summarized and discussed. It is shown through simulation of line profiles that the combined effects of composition gradients, stress gradients and stacking fault gradients can explain the observations in typical X-ray diffractograms.
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