Maui:
The scientific community generally accepts the beginning of the cryogenic temperature zone to be -244F, so the research you are criticizing was done well under cryogenic conditions. As a practical matter it takes a lot of liquid nitrogen to get a chamber down to -320F so a lot if not most research in the field is done at -300F or slightly lower. There is nothing sacred about the boiling point of liquid nitrogen.
Here is some research done to 316 which is focused on residual stress.
Relief of tensile residual stress in girth joint of AISI 316 steel
by deep cryogenic treatment
Qiongqi Wang, Weize Wang, Fu-Zhen
Xuan, Zhengdong Wang, Shan-Tung Tu
*
School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, East China Un
iversity of science and tec
hnology, Shanghai 200237,
Abstract
Although it has been reported that deep cryogenic treatment can improve the wear and fatigue resistance of some metals and alloys, less work was done to investigate the effect of such processing on weld joint of austenitic stainless steels. In this study, phase trans-formation of 316 austenitic stainless steels was studied by the magnetic measurement before and after deep cryogenic treatment, and residual stress in fusion zone and heat-affected zone of girth joint of AISI 316 stainless steel was measured by the electric discharge cutting and static state strain gauge after deep cryogenic treatment. The results indicated that the deep cryogenic treatment can greatly alleviate tensile residual stress of girth joint of austenitic stainless steels greatly.
I did not have time to read the entire paper, but you can see that cold can be used to reduce residual stress. Also the work of Victor Sloan at Victor Aviation has indicated that most metals will have residual stresses relieved at cryogenic temperatures. This is why very sensitive satellite components are treated to -400F so that they do not move in use.
Fennlane
Collins (Cryogenic Treatment of Tool Steels
Collins, D. N.
Advanced Materials and Processes
December 1998, pp. H23-H29)
Collins concludes that the formation of fine carbides are initiated during the hold at -300F and they actually form as the temperature comes up. The diffusion of carbon atoms is happening at cold temperatures. The longer you hold, the more carbides are formed. As to research,you have to realize that the diffusion of point defects is taught in Metallurgy 101. The colder you go the fewer point defects will be in equilibrium. (See Structure-Property Relations in Nonferrous Metals, Alan M. Russell, Wiley, 2005. pages 18-19. The trick is to lower the temperature slowly as not to "freeze in" the point defects.
Something that I don't believe is how supposedly astute metallurgists can make blanket statements without looking into the claims being made. More and more research is being done in the world on this process that can save industry huge amounts of money, and it is not being done here in the USA. Yet my company has shown auto parts makers six to nine time life on their carbide tooling. Those are their numbers, not mine. Why does DCT work on carbide when there is no retained austenite in it? Why did a recent paper show that plastics respond to DCT? Something is happening. Go to the CSA
and read before you tell me you "don't believe." This is not a religion.