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Development of Novel 20Cr Ferritic Stainless Steels via Nanoscale G-Phase Dispersion Strengthening: A Brief Review

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Development of Novel 20Cr Ferritic Stainless Steels via Nanoscale G-Phase Dispersion Strengthening: A Brief Review

Mujin Yang 1 Daobin Zhang 1 Dingding Zhu 1 Bo Du 1 Minglin He 1 Jiang Yi 1,* Zhifu Yao 2,* Shuai Wang 1,3 Cuiping Wang 4,5 Xingjun Liu 6,7,*

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1
Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, 1088 Xueyuan Blvd, Shenzhen 518055, China
2
Sino-German College of Intelligent Manufacturing, Shenzhen Technology University, Shenzhen 518118, China
3
College of Energy and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
4
Fujian Key Laboratory of Surface and Interface Engineering for High Performance Materials, School of Materials Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
5
Xiamen Key Laboratory of High Performance Metals and Materials, School of Materials Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
6
School of Metallurgy and Energy Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650093, China
7
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
*
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Received: 03 February 2026 Revised: 09 April 2026 Accepted: 18 June 2026 Published: 29 June 2026

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© 2026 The authors. This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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High-Temp. Mater. 2026, 3(2), 10012; DOI: 10.70322/htm.2026.10012
ABSTRACT: Extensive investigations have revealed the precipitation of nanometer-scale silicides, identified as G-phase, within the ferritic matrix of duplex stainless steels during prolonged thermal aging. These silicides typically exhibit a well-defined coherent orientation relationship with the ferrite matrix, specifically (100G//100F, 110G//110F, 111G//111F). Consequently, the authors and their research team proposed a novel concept in 2015: utilizing the G-phase as a primary strengthening phase. It was proposed that through strategic alloy design, these silicides—ordinarily considered deleterious in duplex stainless steels—could be used to develop a new generation of dispersion-strengthened ferritic stainless steels. This approach aims to significantly enhance the yield strength of the alloy while maintaining excellent tensile ductility. Over the past decade, the authors and their research team have focused on nanoscale G-phase dispersion-strengthened ferritic stainless steels. By combining first-principles calculations with thermodynamic database-driven alloy design, a series of new ferritic stainless steel systems based on G-phase strengthening has been developed. These efforts have yielded extensive fundamental results regarding the compositional control, microstructural design, and mechanical properties of silicide-strengthened 20Cr ferritic stainless steels. Based on a comprehensive review of the existing literature, this paper further summarizes the compositional design criteria and microstructural control strategies for G-phase strengthened steels. It is hoped that this work will encourage further fundamental research and industrial applications in this field.
Keywords: Silicide G-phase; Ferritic stainless steels; Precipitation strengthening; Strength-ductility synergy
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