ROLLING AND ANNEALING EFFECTS ON MICROSTRUCTURE AND HARDNESS OF COMMERCIAL 405 STAINLESS STEEL. The "cold-rolling" experiments for several values of true strain namely 5 percent, 10 percent, and 15 percent respectively have been carried out on commercial SS-405 steel samples at 350 o C; the as-rolled samples were cut into several pieces in size of 10 x 10 x 5 mm 3 , and some pieces were annealed to 550 o C for 24 hours. All samples were then mounted and polished before etching in order to

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... e the grain boundaries. The microstructure observation on all samples was carried out by using optical microscope (MO), meanwhile X-ray diffraction technique was employed in order to support the identification of the existing phases and to verify changes with respect to crystal orientation; the hardness tests were carried out by using Vickers micro hardness tester. The microstructure observation supported by X-ray diffraction results shows that the phase grains of rolled sample tends to take the oblong-shape, accompanied by a preferred orientation predominantly inclined toward the (110) plane. The microhardness testing results show that there has been an increase in the hardness of the as-rolled samples; Mainly because of the nearly negligible thickness of the original sample (being only 5 mm in size), the 15 percent as-rolled samples exhibits only a slight reduction in hardness compared to the 10 percent as-rolled samples; The main cause of this effect is the movement of some dislocations infiltrating the surface resulting in the reduction of the inner-stress in the bulk of the samples. In the rolled-annealed samples there is a very significant reduction in hardness compared to the as-rolled samples. Here the main cause is the recrystallization process taking place during annealing, which tends to significantly reduce the dislocations.