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Stage-II tensile work hardening behaviour of

type 316L(N) austenitic stainless steel

Article in Materials Science and Engineering A · January 2016

DOI: 10.1016/j.msea.2015.11.001

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 Materials Science & Engineering A 651 (2016) 486–489

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Materials Science & Engineering A

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/msea

Short communication

Stage-II tensile work hardening behaviour of type 316L(N) austenitic

stainless steel
B.K. Choudhary n, J. Christopher
Deformation and Damage Modeling Section, Mechanical Metallurgy Division, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam 603102, Tamil Nadu,
India

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Detailed analysis has been performed to examine stage-II work hardening of type 316L(N) stainless steel
Received 31 July 2015 for different temperatures and strain rates. Enhanced stage-II work hardening observed at intermediate
Received in revised form temperatures indicates larger gains in the dislocation accumulation rate and dislocation density due to
14 October 2015
the occurrence of dynamic strain ageing.
Accepted 1 November 2015
& 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Available online 3 November 2015

Keywords:
Type 316L(N) SS
Stage-II work hardening
Dynamic strain ageing
Dislocation accumulation rate

1. Introduction exhibit three distinct temperature regimes in the variations of

Tensile work hardening behaviour has been widely investigated
based on the variations of instantaneous work hardening rate
(θ ¼ds/dεp, where s is the true stress and εp is the true plastic
strain) and the product of θ and s as a function of true stress [1]. It
has been suggested that the improved description of work hard-
ening can be achieved by considering the variations in θsd (where
θ ¼dsd/dεp ¼ds/dεp) with flow stress contribution from disloca-
tions (sd) in FCC metals and alloys [2–4]. The flow strength of a
polycrystalline material as the sum of strength contributions from
solutes, grain boundaries, precipitates and dislocations is ex-
pressed as
σ = σ 0 + σd = σ 0 + Mαμbρ1/2 ,
where M is the Taylor factor, α is the constant, m is the shear
modulus, b is the Burgers vector and ρ is the dislocation density.
The term s0 denotes the strength contributions from other than
dislocations such as solutes, grain boundaries and precipitates. In
the present study, tensile work hardening behaviour of nitrogen
alloyed low carbon type 316L(N) austenitic stainless steel has been
investigated with an emphasis on stage-II hardening in terms of
the variations in modulus compensated θsd with sd for wide range
of temperatures and strain rates. In general, austenitic steels
n
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: bkc@igcar.gov.in (B.K. Choudhary).
tensile properties with temperature along with signatures of dy-
namic strain ageing at intermediate temperatures and dominance
of dynamic recovery at high temperatures [5,6]. Austenitic steels
are known to exhibit three stages of tensile work hardening, i.e.,
transient stage (TS), stage-II and stage-III [4]. Stage-II work hard-
ening has been examined in terms of the variations in the slope
and intercept of linear θsd/μ2 vs. sd/μ region and the range of
θsd/μ2 and sd/μ, over which stage-II hardening occurs, with
temperature and strain rate. The influence of dynamic strain
ageing on stage-II work hardening has been discussed.
2. Analysis of experimental data
(1)
In the present study, experimental load–elongation data ob-
tained for wide range of temperatures (300–1023 K) and strain
rates (3.16  10  5–3.16  10  3 s  1) in solution annealed type 316L
(N) SS with 85 mm grain size have been used. The chemical com-
position (wt%) of the steel was as follows: Fe–0.021C–0.21Si–
1.74Mn–0.002S–0.0023P–17Cr–12Ni–2.4Mo and 0.078N. The ma-
terial, specimen and tensile test details have been described in Ref.
[6]. Type 316L(N) SS exhibited serrated flow at intermediate
temperatures [6]. The averaging scheme for load–elongation
curves showing types A, A þB/B and A þC/C serrations is also de-
scribed in Ref. [6]. The true stress (s)-true plastic strain (εp) was
evaluated from the load–elongation data.
Following Eq. (1), the flow stress contribution from dislocations

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2015.11.001
0921-5093/& 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 B.K. Choudhary, J. Christopher / Materials Science & Engineering A 651 (2016) 486–489 487

(sd) was calculated as sd ¼s s0 from s–εp data and the term s0
has been evaluated as

σ 0 = σ I − Mαμbρ01/2 , (2)

where the value of initial stress (sI) was taken as true stress at
εp ¼0.001 and the initial dislocation density (ρ0) was considered
as 1  1011 m  2. The instantaneous work hardening rate (θ) was
evaluated from sd–εp data using the centred-difference method
[4]. It has been generally observed that the experimental θsd vs. sd
data exhibit significant scatter around the mean θsd. In view of
this, smoothening method based on adjacent average has been
adopted for obtaining the best average θsd–sd at all the test
conditions.

3. Results and discussion

Experimental θsd vs. sd data along with the best average line is
typically shown in Fig. 1 for the strain rate 3.16  10  5 s  1 at
623 K. It can be seen that the best average line adequately re- Fig. 2. Influence of temperature on θsd vs. sd at the strain rate 3.16  10  5 s  1.
presents θsd vs. sd data. The variations in θsd with sd exhibit
different stages of work hardening characterized by a gradual in-
crease in θsd (transient stage or, TS) followed by a linear hardening
at intermediate sd (stage-II) and an inverted parabolic hardening
at high sd (stage-III). The onset of stage-II has been obtained from
the beginning of linear θsd vs. sd as θsd,Onset-II and sd,Onet-II values.
The onset of stage-III has been taken as the onset of deviation from
the linearity in θsd vs. sd plot as θsd,Onet-III and sd,Onet-III. The values
of slope (θII) and intercept (θsd,0) for stage-II have been evaluated
from the best fit θsd–sd data. The range of θsd and sd for the
occurrence of stage-II have been obtained as Δθsd,Stage-II ¼
(θsd,Onet-III  θsd,Onset-II) and Δsd,Stage-II ¼ (sd,Onet-III  sd,Onset-II),
respectively.
The influence of temperature on θsd vs. sd is typically shown
for the strain rate 3.16  10  5 s  1 in Fig. 2. In stage-II, θsd vs. sd
data fall in a narrow scatter band and an average value of slope θII
¼1804 MPa2 has been obtained for the range of temperatures and
strain rates investigated. Compared to θsd vs. sd, the influence of
temperature on work hardening behaviour displaying three dis-
tinct temperature regimes (Region-I: 300–523 K, Region-II: 523–
873 K and Region-III: above 873 K) can be clearly seen in the
normalised plots of θsd/μ2 vs. sd/μ in Fig. 3. Further, significantly
Fig. 3. Influence of temperature on θsd/μ2 vs. sd/μ at the strain rate 3.16  10  5 s  1.

Fig. 1. Representative plot of θsd vs. sd showing three stage work hardening in type Fig. 4. The variations of slope (θII/μ) and intercept (θsd,0/μ2) of stage-II work
316L(N) SS. Various parameters used to examine stage-II hardening are shown. hardening with temperature and strain rate.
488 B.K. Choudhary, J. Christopher / Materials Science & Engineering A 651 (2016) 486–489
Fig. 5. Variations of Δθsd,Stage-II/μ2 with temperature and strain rate.
higher θsd/μ2 values in stage-II at intermediate temperatures
dominated by dynamic strain ageing than at 300 K can also be
seen in Fig. 3. This is reflected in the increase in slope of stage-II in
the dynamic strain ageing temperature regime as shown in Fig. 4.
The linear stage-II work hardening can be expressed as
θσd θII θσd,0
= σd + .
μ2 μ μ2
(3)
For different strain rates, an increase in average θII/μ value from
0.018 at 300 K to 0.032 at 923 K has been observed. The normal-
ised intercept displayed scatter with respect to temperature and
strain rate, and an average value of θsd,0/μ2 ¼1  10  5 was ob-
tained (Fig. 4). The enhanced stage-II work hardening due to dy-
namic strain ageing is reflected in the occurrence of discernible
peaks, negative strain rate sensitivity and higher Δθsd,Stage-II/μ2
and Δsd,Stage-II/μ values at intermediate temperatures (Figs. 5 and
6).
It is well known that the rapid work hardening during stage-II
in FCC metals results as a consequence of the formation of effec-
tive slip obstacles through interactions between primary and
secondary dislocations including the Lomer–Cottrell interactions
Fig. 6. Variations of Δsd,Stage-II/μ with temperature and strain rate.
[7–9]. Lomer–Cottrell sessile dislocation segments lying parallel to
o110 4 directions in {001} planes are considered to be of prime
importance in view of their stability in stage-II [10]. These seg-
ments act as effective obstacles for gliding dislocations to catalyze
the formation of dislocation bundles [10]. Since the continued and
monotonic generation rate of sessile obstacles and the resulting
storage rate of dislocations in bundles with strain are linked pro-
cesses, the rate of stage-II hardening is observed to be constant
and largely independent of temperature and strain rate. Higher
work hardening rate in stage-II results from the absence of con-
siderable dynamic recovery counteracting the sessile obstacles
storage rate [10]. According to Estrin and Mecking [1], the inter-
cept θsd,0 is equal to M3α2k/2, where k is inversely related to the
mean free path of precipitates or, grain boundaries. In type 316L
(N) SS, grain boundaries act as an obstacle for dislocation move-
ment. The observed positive intercept value of θsd,0/μ (Fig. 4) is
related to the evolution of geometrically necessary dislocations in
order to accommodate the plastic deformation between the grains
[11]. The slope θII/μ is equal to the M2αk1/2 (where k1 is the dis-
location accumulation constant) related to the evolution of sta-
tistical dislocations arising from dislocation–dislocation interac-
tions. In FCC single crystals, θII ¼ μ/200 independent of tempera-
ture and strain rate has been reported [12]. The observed θII values
ranging from μ/55 (at 300 K) to μ/31 (at 923 K) in type 316L(N) SS
(Fig. 4) are in agreement with the θII values in the range μ/40–μ/20
reported for FCC polycrystalline materials [1,13]. Detailed dis-
location substructural investigations on 316L SS at 300 K revealed
the dominance of dislocation pile-ups and stacking faults in the
transient stage, which increased rapidly with increase in plastic
strain [14]. This clearly shows that the dislocation–dislocation in-
teractions (statistical dislocations) and pile up of dislocations
nearby grain boundary (geometrically necessary dislocations) play
a major role in stage-II work hardening. The marginal increase in
θII/μ with temperature indicates the increased contribution of
dislocation–dislocation interaction at intermediate temperatures
dominated by dynamic strain ageing. Since θsd is proportional to
dρ/dεp [3,4], the increased Δθsd,Stage-II/μ2 indicates larger gain in
dislocation accumulation rate at intermediate temperatures
(Fig. 5). Similarly, the occurrence of peaks in Δsd,Stage-II/μ clearly
signifies larger gain in dislocation density in the dynamic strain
ageing temperature regime arising from the proportionality be-
tween sd and ρ0.5 (Fig. 6). In the dynamic strain ageing regime, it
has been reported that the segregation of solute atoms into
stacking faults results in the wider dissociation of partial disloca-
tions [15]. In case of dislocations widely dissociated, it becomes
difficult for stress relief mechanisms to operate at dislocation pile-
ups at the sessile Lomer–Cottrell dislocations, including the an-
nihilation of screw dislocations by cross-slip and forest cutting.
This arises from the fact that the constriction of dissociated wider
dislocations must precede the cross-slip and the forest cutting
interactions. The higher gains in Δθsd,Stage-II/μ2 and Δsd,Stage-II/μ
values observed in the dynamic strain ageing regime result not
only from the interaction of primary and secondary dislocations
but also from the suppression and delay in the cross-slip events
during stage-II. The peaks in Δθsd,Stage-II/μ2 and Δsd,Stage-II/μ at
intermediate temperatures result as a consequence of enhanced
dislocation dissociation width due to increase in the intensity of
dynamic strain ageing with increase in temperature (Figs. 5 and 6).
Above 873 K, rapid decrease in Δθsd,Stage-II/μ2 and Δsd,Stage-II/μ
due to early onsets of stage-II and stage-III imply lower gains in
dislocation accumulation rate and dislocation density, respectively.
The observed significant increase in θII/μ above 973 K can be as-
cribed to effects associated with the comparative gains in dis-
location accumulation rate over dislocation density.
 B.K. Choudhary, J. Christopher / Materials Science & Engineering A 651 (2016) 486–489 489

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