Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 54 (2010) 63–70

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Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics

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Cyclic plastic deformation and cyclic hardening/softening behavior in 304LN

stainless steel
S.K. Paul a,*, S. Sivaprasad a, S. Dhar b, S. Tarafder a
a
Materials Science and Technology Division, National Metallurgical Laboratory (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research), Jamshedpur 831 007, India
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700 032, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Low cycle fatigue experiments have been conducted on 304LN stainless steel in ambient air at room tem-
Available online 13 June 2010 perature. Uniaxial ratcheting behavior has also been studied on this material and in both engineering and
true stress controlling modes. It is shown that material’s cyclic hardening/softening behavior in low cycle
Keywords: fatigue and in ratcheting is dependent not only on material but also on the loading condition. Improve-
Low cycle fatigue ment of ratcheting life and mean stress dependent hardening are observed in the presence of mean stress.
Ratcheting A method based on the strain energy density (SED) is used to represent cyclic hardening/softening behav-
Cyclic hardening
ior of the material in this work. The decrease of SED with cycles is an indication that the life in low cycle
True stress–strain
Strain energy density
fatigue and in ratcheting is improved. The SED represents the area of the hysteresis loops.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Safe operation of piping network is a vital requirement in nucle-
ar power plants. Piping systems in the nuclear power plant are de-
signed for normal operating loads along with superimposed cyclic
loads. Cyclic load excursions in the plastic range may result cyclic
plastic deformation of the material. Low cycle fatigue (LCF) and
ratcheting are the major cyclic plastic deformation phenomena
which can lead to degradation and failure of such piping material.
Cyclic loads can be described as symmetric strain cycling arising
from temperature fluctuation due to start-up and shut-down of
the plants, asymmetric stress cycling arising from earthquake
events and accidental loads, etc. Symmetric strain cycling in the
plastic range is termed as LCF and asymmetric stress cycling is
termed as ratcheting.
Ratcheting is a progressive directional accumulation of plastic
strain due to asymmetric stress cycling. It is potentially deleteri-
ous, because for a suitable combination of mean stress and stress
amplitude, there can be a continuous accumulation of plastic strain
in every cycle. Along with fatigue damage, directional permanent
deformation acts concurrently in ratcheting. Sometime ratcheting
contributes unacceptable amount of permanent deformation in
the piping component like, ovalization of T-joints and elbows un-
der cyclic bending, thinning out the cross-sectional area and local
bulging of pressurized pipes under cyclic loading, etc. The study
of strain accumulation due to asymmetrical stress cycling in struc-
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: paulsurajit@yahoo.co.in (S.K. Paul).
tural materials for piping application has been the subject of a
number of investigations in recent years [1–8].
Ratcheting results in accumulation of large plastic strain [1–8]
which leads to substantial progressive change in the cross-sec-
tional area. If these cross-sectional area change are not taken into
account in successive stress calculation then true stress change be-
comes uncontrollable. Since true stress and true strain gives the ac-
tual deformation response in materials, it is prudent to carry out
ratcheting experiments where substantial cross-sectional area
change is envisaged under true stress control. However, engineer-
ing stress controlled conventional ratcheting experiments are
equally important from engineering point of view, because in prac-
tical there is no provision to measure and control the true stress. In
general, repeated loading damage can be accounted for by the
accumulation of the strain energy density (SED) function com-
puted from the area of the hysteresis loops for low cycle fatigue
and/or ratcheting [9–11]. In what follows, ratcheting test results
are presented in both engineering and true stress controlling mode.
Most of the materials display a cyclic hardening/softening
behavior. Some materials, such as the stainless steels and pure cop-
per, exhibit very significant cyclic hardening [5,12,13] while some
other materials such as 1070 steel display less significant harden-
ing or softening [5]. In general, a hard material (cold worked,
quenched) cyclically softens and a soft material (annealed) cycli-
cally hardens. Cyclic hardening or softening is not only dependent
on the material but also on the loading magnitude (stress/strain
amplitude) and loading history (pre-stressed, pre-cycled) [5]. Cyc-
lic hardening and softening can be identified by examining the var-
iation of stress amplitude with the loading cycles in strain-
controlled loading condition and variation of the strain amplitude

0167-8442/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tafmec.2010.06.016
64 S.K. Paul et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 54 (2010) 63–70
with the number of cycles in stress controlled loading condition
[6]. Sometime cyclic hardening/softening can be presented as a fac-
tor which is the ratio of increment/decrement of stress amplitude
with respect to the stress amplitude at first cycle in case of strain
controlled cycling and the ratio of decrement/increment of strain
amplitude with respect to the strain amplitude at first cycle in case
of stress controlled cycling [14,15]. Representation of cyclic hard-
ening/softening is therefore different in stress and strain-con-
trolled loading. In this work, a universal cyclic hardening/
softening representation technique is demonstrated.
A separate material hardening is associated with ratcheting rate
decay [6]. Ratcheting rate represents the non-closer of hysteresis
loop at a particular cycle [5], whereas cyclic hardening means stiff-
ening of the stress–strain curve [6]. Cyclic hardening may lead to
ratcheting rate decay, but from ratcheting rate decay it is difficult
to conclude that cyclic hardening has occurred. This work aims to
show whether extra hardening is associated with ratcheting or not
by the cyclic hardening/softening representation technique.
2. Experimental
The AISI 304LN austenitic stainless steel used in this study was
available in the form of pipe of 320 mm outer diameter and 25 mm
wall thickness. Its nominal chemical composition (in wt.%) was: C,
0.03; Si, 0.65; Ni, 8.17; Cr, 18.73; Mo, 0.26; Cu, 0.29; N, 0.08; S,
0.02; P, 0.034 and balance Fe. Cylindrical specimens of 13 mm
gauge length and 7 mm gauge diameter were fabricated from the
pipe stock with their axes parallel to the pipe axis. Tensile tests
were carried out on the above specimens at a strain rate of
1  103 s1 to obtain mechanical properties. The tensile proper-
ties of the 304LN stainless steel are given in Table 1. Engineering
stress controlled asymmetrical stress cycling was imposed on the
specimens using a 100KN servo-electric (Instron 8862) test ma-
chine in laboratory ambient conditions. One set of tests were con-
ducted with constant stress amplitude of 420 MPa and varying
mean stresses ranging from 0 to 180 MPa. Another set of experi-
ments were carried out at a fixed mean stress of 120 MPa and vary-
ing stress amplitudes of 300–420 MPa. Test frequency was altered
suitably so that a constant stress rate of 50 MPa s1 was main-
tained in all tests. True stress controlled tests were also conducted
using similar stress parameters, but reframed to their true stress
values. A 12.5 mm gauge length axial extensometer was used to
measure the strain during tests. Experiments were continued till
failure and stress–strain data acquired throughout the test so as
to obtain 200 data points in each stress cycle. All tests were con-
ducted using commercial software with a computer interfaced to
the control system of the testing machine. For true stress con-
trolled tests, the feedback from the extensometer was used to com-
pute true strain and there by the true stress continuously. Applied
loads were concomitantly altered to maintain true stress ampli-
tude and mean stress as per the test requirement.
3. Results and discussion
Many engineering materials usually exhibit cyclic hardening/
softening to some extent in cyclic plastic deformation process. So
far, the description about cyclic hardening/softening from a large
number of references more or less uses qualitative description
Table 1
Tensile properties of 304LN stainless steel.
Yield stress Ultimate tensile stress Uniform
(MPa) (MPa) elongation (%)
353 671 52.8
[14,15], some use finite element based concept by considering iso-
tropic hardening and kinematic hardening model. Few researchers
introduced the concept of cyclic hardening factor (or softening fac-
tor) [14,15]; with this single factor cyclic hardening of both strain
and stress controlled fatigue cannot be represented. For strain con-
trolled fatigue it is the ratio of stress amplitude at any cycle to
stress amplitude at first cycle and for stress controlled fatigue it
is the ratio of strain amplitude at any cycle to the strain amplitude
at first cycle [14,15]. For strain controlled experiments hardening
factor (He) [14,15] can be expressed as:
DrS  Dr1
He ¼ ð1Þ
Dr 1
where, DrS = stress amplitude at saturated cycle and Dr1 = stress
amplitude at first cycle.
Hardening factor (HS) [14] for stress controlled experiments can
be expressed as:
DeS  De1
HS ¼ ð2Þ
De1
where, DeS = strain amplitude at saturated cycle and De1 = strains
amplitude at first cycle.
Obviously, He, HS > 0 for cyclic hardening materials and
He, HS < 0 for cyclic softening materials. So, with these two differ-
ent hardening factors, it is difficult to compare cyclic hardening/
softening behavior of the material at stress and strain-controlled
loading condition. In this work, a cyclic hardening representation
technique is introduced so that cyclic hardening/softening behav-
ior of materials during both stress and strain-controlled loading
condition can be expressed by a single hardening factor (or soften-
ing factor). During cyclic plastic deformation a stress–strain hys-
teresis loop is formed and its shape will be continuously
changing with cycle depending upon materials hardening/soften-
ing behavior. Each hysteresis loop has a definite geometry, with a
loop width that is double of plastic strain amplitude (Dep) and loop
height that is double of the stress amplitude (Dr). Stress amplitude
is proportional to elastic strain amplitude (Dee). So, hysteresis loop
geometry can be expressed by the ratio of plastic strain amplitude
(Dep) and elastic strain amplitude (Dee) which is named as strain
ratio (SR)
Dep
SR ¼ ð3Þ
Dee
Total strain amplitude (De) is the summation of plastic strain
amplitude (Dep) and elastic strain amplitude (Dee). So, for a known
modulus of elasticity (E), stress amplitude (Dr) and total strain
amplitude (De), strain ratio (SR) of a hysteresis loop can be de-
scribed as expressed in Eq. (5)
Dep ¼ De  Dee ð4Þ
EDe
SR ¼ 1 ð5Þ
Dr
Hardening factor (H) can be described as the ratio of strain ratio at
saturated cycle (SRS) and strain ratio at first cycle (SR1)
SRS
H¼ ð6Þ
SR1
From Eq. (6) it can be stated that H < 1 for cyclic hardening materi-
als and H > 1 for cyclic softening materials.
3.1. LCF behavior
Total The cyclic stress response curves are given in Fig. 1(a) for eleven
elongation (%) fully reversed total strain controlled LCF tests. Stress amplitude is
69.62 determined by averaging the maximum and minimum stress in a
hysteresis loop. Increase of stress amplitude with number of cycles
 S.K. Paul et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 54 (2010) 63–70 65

ing in strain controlled cycling (LCF). So, two competitive effects

a Strain amplitude (%) are acting together at the time of SED computation in strain con-
550 0.2
trolled cycling. Though overall SED increases with cyclic hardening
0.5
0.7 shown in Fig. 1(b), its response is far lower than increase in peak
500 stress with cyclic hardening which is shown in Fig. 1(a). On the con-
0.77
Stress amplitude, MPa

0.85 trary, stress amplitude maintained a constant value and plastic

450 1.0
strain amplitude reduces with cyclic hardening in stress controlled
1.2
1.4 cycling (ratcheting) which is shown during ratcheting discussion. As
400 1.6 there is no such competitive effect like LCF in stress controlled fati-
1.8 gue, SED can be taken as a representative parameter to represent
2.0 cyclic hardening. So, SED cannot be taken as a universal parameter
350
to represent cyclic hardening/softening behavior for both strain and
300 stress controlled loading (LCF and ratcheting).
In strain-controlled loading, cyclic hardening means increment
of stress amplitude while cycling [6,14]. Total strain amplitude is
250
1 10 100 1000 10000 100000 the summation of elastic strain and plastic strain amplitudes,
Number of cycles shown in Eq. (4). As elastic strain amplitude is proportional to
stress amplitude, with cyclic hardening elastic strain amplitude in-
b 35 creases and at the same time plastic strain amplitude trims down
Strain amplitude, %
and hence strain ratio (SR) reduces. Strain ratio (SR) is quantified
2.0
30 1.8 and plotted against number of cycles at different strain amplitudes
1.6 in Fig. 2(a). There is a rapid decrease of strain ratio in initial few cy-
25 1.4 cles (10–15 cycles) and followed by slow decrease of strain ratio at
1.2 strain amplitude higher than 1.4%. At strain amplitude in between
1.0
20 05% and 1.2%, material showed reduction of strain ratio in initial
SED, MJ/m3

0.85
0.77 few cycles (10–15 cycles) and followed by steady increment of
15 0.7 strain ratio. Material displayed a continuous drop of strain ratio
0.5 (i.e. cyclic softening) throughout its life for 0.2% strain amplitude.
0.2
10
a 9
Strain amplitude (%)
5
2.0
8 1.8
0 1.6
7 1.4
1 10 100 1000 10000 100000
1.2
Number of cycles 6 1.0
Strain ratio (SR)

0.85
Fig. 1. LCF: (a) cyclic stress response curve; (b) SED versus number of cycles. 5 0.77
0.7
4 0.5
0.2
for total strain controlled test dictates cyclic hardening and vice
3
versa [6,14,15]. The material displays significant cyclic hardening
in initial few cycles except 0.2% strain amplitude, followed by cyc- 2
lic softening for the strain amplitude lower than 1.2% and progres-
1
sive cyclic hardening for the strain amplitude higher than 1.4%. At
the lower strain amplitude, i.e. 0.5% and 0.2%, the material exhib- 0
ited severe cyclic softening. Depending upon the applied strain 1 10 100 1000 10000 100000
amplitude the material showed a combination of cyclic harden- Number of cycles
ing/softening followed by final fracture, almost without reaching
its saturated values. In all the LCF experiments failure of specimen b Strain amplitude (%)
2.0 2.0
occurred prior to attainment of a saturation state. From the above
1.8
discussion it can be stated that cyclic hardening/softening is not 1.6
1.8
only dependent on material but also on loading condition. 1.4
1.2
Strain energy density (SED), i.e. accumulation of energy was
Hardening factor (H)

1.6 1.0
effectively used in fatigue fracture [9–11,16] and energy based fa- 0.85
tigue damage evolution [17]. Therefore it is necessary to examine 1.4
0.77
0.7
the effectiveness of SED in cyclic hardening/softening representa- 0.5
tion. Strain energy density (SED), i.e. hysteresis loop area calcu- 1.2 0.2
lated from experimental hysteresis loop and plotted with
number of cycles at different strain amplitude is shown in 1.0
Fig. 1(b). SED is proportional to stress amplitude (Dr) and plastic
strain amplitude (Dep) by Eq. (7) [14,18] 0.8
 
1  n0 1  n0 Dr
SED ¼ 4 DrDep ¼4 D r D e  ð7Þ 1 10 100 1000 10000
1 þ n0 1 þ n0 E Number of cycles
where, n0 is the cyclic strain hardening exponent. Stress amplitude Fig. 2. LCF: (a) strain ratio (SR) versus number of cycles; (b) hardening factor (H)
increases and plastic strain amplitude reduces with cyclic harden- function of number of cycles.
66 S.K. Paul et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 54 (2010) 63–70

Hardening factor (H) is calculated from Eq. (6) and plotted in
Fig. 2(b) with number of cycles. H continuously increases with
number of cycles for 0.2% strain amplitude. With number of cycles
H reduces rapidly in initial few cycles (10–15 cycles) and then H
rises till failure for strain amplitude in the range of 0.5–1.2%. For
the strain amplitude of 0.5–0.77%, H increases after initial harden-
ing, it crosses initial H value and grows beyond the value of unity,
this indicates initial hardening is fully recovered and further soft-
ening has occurred. At strain amplitude higher than 1.4%, H contin-
uously increases from initial cycle to failure, and of course in the
initial few cycles (10–15 cycles) rate of increment of H is rapid.
This cyclic hardening/softening behavior of the material can be
easily understood at a glance from Fig. 2(b).
3.2. Ratcheting behavior
Ratcheting strain (er) is the position of a hysteresis loop centre
along the strain axis. It can be described as half of the summation
of maximum strain (emax) and minimum strain (emin) of a loop
1 tude rising from 300 to 420 MPa, respectively. Variation of
er ¼ ðemax þ emin Þ
2
The amount of non closure in Nth hysteresis loop is nothing but the
ratcheting rate (der/dN) at Nth cycle. The ratcheting strain accumu-
lated up to the Nth cycle is given by
Z N
der
er ¼ ð9Þ
1 dN
Ratcheting strain evolution with number of cycles for engineering
stress controlled tests is portrayed in Fig. 3(a) and (b). It is generally
expected that a material would show zero ratcheting strain accu-
mulation in fully reversed stress cycling, but Fig. 3(a) showed that
small amount of ratcheting strain is buildup at fully reversed stress
cycling with stress amplitude of 420 MPa. Lim et al. [7] has also
shown the development of small amount ratcheting strain in Elbro-
dur-NIB copper alloy for fully reversed stress cycling. Fig. 3(a) por-
trays that ratcheting life decreases and accumulated ratcheting
strain increases with increase in mean stress at a given constant
stress amplitude. With increase of stress amplitude, mean stress
maintains a constant value of 120 MPa, causing increase in ratchet-
ing strain accumulation and decrease in ratcheting life as shown in
Fig. 3(b).
Fig. 4(a) and (b) shows strain ratio variation with number of cy-
cles at mean stress ranging from 0 to 180 MPa and at stress ampli-
ð8Þ hardening factor against number of cycles is shown in Fig. 5(a)
and (b) for varying mean stress and stress amplitude, respectively.
In these engineering stress controlled ratcheting tests, along with
cyclic hardening/softening of the material, geometric softening
(due to reduction of cross-sectional area) occurred simultaneously.

a 90
Stress amplitude 420 MPa
a 15.0
Stress amplitude 420 MPa
80 Mean stress (MPa) Mean stress (MPa)
0 0
70 60 12.5 60
120 120
Ratcheting strain (%)

60 180
Strain ratio (SR)

180
50 10.0

40
7.5
30
20
5.0
10
0 Engineering stress controlled test Engineering stress controlled test
2.5
1 10 100 1000 10 100 1000
Number of cycles Number of cycles

b 90
Mean stress 120 MPa
b 12
Mean stress 120 MPa
80 Stress amplitude (MPa) Stress amplitude (MPa)
420 300
10
70 360 360
300 420
Ratcheting strain (%)

60
Strain ratio (SR)

8
50

40 6

30
4
20

10 2
Engineering stress controlled test
Engineering stress controlled test
0
1 10 100 1000 10000 1 10 100 1000 10000
Number of cycles Number of cycles

Fig. 3. Ratcheting strain (%) evolution with number of cycles in engineering stress Fig. 4. Strain ratio (SR) variation with number of cycles in engineering stress
controlled ratcheting test: (a) stress amplitude of 420 MPa and mean stress of 0– controlled ratcheting test: (a) stress amplitude of 420 MPa and mean stress of 0–
180 MPa; (b) mean stress of 120 MPa and stress amplitude of 300–420 MPa. 180 MPa; (b) mean stress of 120 MPa and stress amplitude of 300–420 MPa.
 S.K. Paul et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 54 (2010) 63–70 67

So, 50% tensile ratcheting strain accumulation causes 33.33%

a 3.0
Stress amplitude 420 MPa reduction of cross-sectional area (computed from Eq. (12)) and
Mean stress (MPa) 1.5 times increase in true stress value (calculated from Eq. (11)).
2.5 0
60 As true stress–strain is the actual material response, true stress
120
Hardening factor (H)

2.0 180

800
1.5

600 1-3C 50C 500C 1500C 3600C

1.0

400

True stress, MPa

0.5

Engineering stress controlled test 200

0.0
10 100 1000
Number of cycles 0

2.00
b Mean stress 120 MPa
-200
Stress amplitude (MPa)
1.75 300
360
-400
420 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
1.50
Hardening factor (H)

True strain, %
1.25 Fig. 6. True stress–strain response at mean stress of 60 MPa and stress amplitude of
420 MPa.
1.00

0.75
a 24 Stress amplitude 420 MPa
0.50 22 Mean stress (MPa)
60
Engineering stress controlled test 20 120
0.25 180
18
Ratcheting strain (%)

10 100 1000 10000

Number of cycles 16
14
Fig. 5. Change of hardening factor (H) against number of cycles in engineering
stress controlled ratcheting test: (a) stress amplitude of 420 MPa and mean stress of 12
0–180 MPa; (b) mean stress of 120 MPa and stress amplitude of 300–420 MPa. 10
8
So, the strain ratio and hardening factor observed from the tests re- 6
sults do not reflect the actual materials behavior.
4
Large magnitude of axial ratcheting strain accumulation is no-
2 True stress controlled test
ticed in engineering stress controlled asymmetric stress cycling
tests. These axial strain accumulations take place at the expense 0
1 10 100 1000 10000
of specimen cross-sectional area reduction. So, true test conditions,
Number of cycles
i.e. true mean stress and true stress amplitude are changed with
ratcheting strain evolution. True strain refers to the ratio of change
in gauge length (DL) to instantaneous gauge length (L) which can b 22
Mean stress 120 MPa
be described by Eq. (10) 20 Stress amplitude (MPa)
300
Z L   18 360
DL L
er ¼ ¼ ln ¼ lnð1 þ er Þ ð10Þ 16 420
L L0
Ratcheting strain (%)

L0
14
where, er = true ratcheting strain, er = engineering ratcheting strain
12
and L0 = initial gauge length of specimen.
Considering materials volume incompressibility, true stress can 10
be determined from Eq. (11) 8
r ¼ Sð1 þ er Þ ð11Þ 6
4
where, r = true stress and S = engineering stress.
Amount of area reduction can be calculated from volume 2
True stress controlled test
incompressibility condition, as shown in Eq. (12) 0
1 10 100 1000 10000
DA er Number of cycles
¼ ð12Þ
A 1 þ er
Fig. 7. Ratcheting strain (%) evolution with number of cycles in true stress
where, A is the original cross-sectional area and DA is the reduction controlled ratcheting test: (a) stress amplitude of 420 MPa and mean stress of 60–
in cross-sectional area at er engineering tensile ratcheting strain. 180 MPa; (b) mean stress of 120 MPa and stress amplitude of 300–420 MPa.
68 S.K. Paul et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 54 (2010) 63–70

controlled ratcheting test should be done to understand the mate-
rial’s ratcheting response properly.
True stress–strain response of the material at mean stress of
60 MPa and stress amplitude of 420 MPa is depicted in Fig. 6. Hys-
teresis loop shifts along the strain axis due to its non-closer and at
different number of cycles hysteresis loop positions are shown in
Fig. 6. According to [5] accumulation of ratcheting strain takes
place in the direction of mean stress, i.e. tensile mean stress causes
tensile ratcheting strain and vice versa, in this figure also 60 MPa
tensile mean stress causes tensile ratcheting strain evolution. The
advancement of ratcheting strain with cycles in 304LN stainless
steel under true stress control is shown in Fig. 7(a) for constant
stress amplitude of 420 MPa whereas mean stress changes from
60 to 180 MPa and Fig. 7(b) for constant mean stress of 120 MPa
whereas stress amplitude ranging from 300 to 420 MPa. With in-
crease in stress amplitude ratcheting strain increases and ratchet-
ing life decreases as shown in Fig. 7(b). These results are very
similar to the engineering stress controlled experimental results
shown for 1026 carbon steel [1], 1070 carbon steel [5], SS304 stain-
less steel [3,8] and Elbrodur-NIB copper alloy [7]. Ratcheting strain
increases and ratcheting life improves with rise in mean stress is
shown in Fig. 7(a). Improvement of fatigue life with increase in
mean stress is quite contradictory with previously done engineer-
ing stress controlled experimental results and that can be ex-
plained by the absorption of strain energy density (SED) during
cycling. The SED can be estimated from the area enclosed by the
hysteresis loop. As a general rule, more hysteresis loop area means
more amount of energy is absorbed by the material per cycle and
more damage is accumulated per cycle and hence lesser will be
the fatigue life [17]. Hysteresis loop area is quantified and plotted
with number of cycles at different mean stress in Fig. 8(a) which
shows that hysteresis loop area decreases with increase in mean
stress from the first cycle. For a constant amplitude stress cycling,
reduction of hysteresis loop area with increase in mean stress indi-
cates a mean stress dependent hardening of the material. Different
researchers showed hardening of the materials at the presence of
tensile mean stress in engineering stress controlled tests, these
are: carbon steel [19,20], 304 stainless steel [21], polycrystalline
copper [22,23] and polycrystalline nickel [24]. So, it is expected
that mean stress dependent hardening is responsible for improve-
ment of true stress controlled ratcheting life. Similarly, SED is plot-
ted with number of cycles at various stress amplitude in Fig. 8(b).
Stress amplitude dependent hardening (i.e. loading condition
dependent hardening) is observed in Fig. 8(b), SED increases with
number of cycles at low stress amplitude (300 MPa) which indi-
cates cyclic softening and decrease of SED with cycling at high
stress amplitude (360 and 420 MPa) which indicates cyclic harden-
ing. Strain ratio versus number of cycles is plotted in Fig. 9(a) for
varying mean stress. This picture shows that value of strain ratio
decrease with increase in mean stress though stress amplitude
maintained a constant value and which supports mean stress
dependent hardening phenomena. In Fig. 9(b) variation of strain

a 7
Stress amplitude 420 MPa a 2.5
Stress amplitude 420 MPa
Mean stress (MPa) Mean stress (MPa)
6 60 60
120 2.0 120
5 180 180
Strain ratio (SR)
3

1.5
SED, MJ/m

3
1.0
2
0.5
1
True stress controlled test
0 True stress controlled test
0.0
1 10 100 1000 10000 1 10 100 1000 10000
Number of cycles Number of cycles

b 5
Mean stress 120 MPa
b 1.6
Mean stress 120 MPa
Stress amplitude Stress amplitude (MPa)
1.4 300
420 MPa
4 360 MPa 360
300 MPa
1.2 420
Strain ratio (SR)

1.0
SED, MJ/m 3

3
0.8
2
0.6

0.4
1
0.2
True stress controlled test True stress controlled test
0 0.0
1 10 100 1000 10000 1 10 100 1000 10000
Number of cycles Number of cycles

Fig. 8. Variation of SED (MJ/m3) against number of cycles in true stress controlled Fig. 9. Strain ratio (SR) variation with number of cycles in true stress controlled
ratcheting experiment: (a) at stress amplitude of 420 MPa and mean stress of 60– ratcheting test: (a) stress amplitude of 420 MPa and mean stress of 60–180 MPa; (b)
180 MPa; (b) at mean stress of 120 MPa and stress amplitude of 300–420 MPa. mean stress of 120 MPa and stress amplitude of 300–420 MPa.
 S.K. Paul et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 54 (2010) 63–70 69

steel. Based on the analysis of the test data, the following conclu-
a 1.0
Stress amplitude 420 MPa sions have been drawn:
Mean stress (MPa)
60
0.8 120 a. Proposed method of cyclic hardening/softening is able to
180 describe the cyclic hardening/softening in both stress (rat-
Hardening factor (H)

cheting) and strain (LCF) controlled loading conditions.

0.6 b. Cyclic hardening/softening can be efficiently represented by
SED for stress controlled loading (ratcheting).
c. Material has shown loading condition dependent cyclic
0.4 hardening/softening in LCF and ratcheting.
d. True stress control experiments show improvement of fati-
gue life in the presence of mean stress at constant stress
0.2
amplitude.
e. Decrease in hysteresis loop area and strain ratio with
True stress controlled test
0.0 increasing mean stress representing mean stress dependent
1 10 100 1000 10000 hardening is noticed.
Number of cycles f. Mean stress dependent hardening is thought to be responsi-
ble for the improved life in true stress controlled ratcheting
3.0 test.
b Mean stress 120 MPa
Stress amplitude (MPa)
2.5 300
360
Acknowledgements
420
2.0 Our sincere thanks to Council of Scientific and Industrial Re-
Hardening factor (H)

1.5
1.0
0.5
True stress controlled test
0.0
10 100 1000
Number of cycles
Fig. 10. Change of hardening factor (H) against number of cycles in true stress
controlled ratcheting test: (a) stress amplitude of 420 MPa and mean stress of 60–
180 MPa; (b) mean stress of 120 MPa and stress amplitude of 300–420 MPa.
ratio at various stress amplitude with number of cycles is given. It
is noted that strain ratio increases with number of cycles at low
stress amplitude (300 MPa) which indicates cyclic softening and
a decrease of strain ratio with cycling at high stress amplitude
(360 and 420 MPa) which indicates cyclic hardening. Similar kind
of cyclic hardening/softening behavior at different loading condi-
tions is also shown in LCF experimental results in Fig. 2(a). Varia-
tion of hardening factor with number of cycles at different value
of mean stress is portrayed in Fig. 10(a). Hardening factor is not
only decreased with number of cycles but also increased with va-
lue of mean stress, as shown in Fig. 10(a). A separate martial hard-
ening is associated with ratcheting [6]. Higher value of mean stress
means higher is the ratcheting which is already discussed in
Fig. 7(a) and higher is the hardening as shown in Fig. 10(a). These
results thus support the fact that separate martial hardening asso-
ciated with ratcheting. Fig. 10(b) shows hardening factor as a func-
tion of number of cycles, like Fig. 9(b) this figure also shows
loading condition dependent cyclic hardening/softening behavior
of the material. It was also found that cyclic hardening/softening
behavior is dependent on loading condition in 304LN stainless
steel [25].
4. Conclusions
An engineering and true stress controlled experimental study is
carried out on the LCF and ratcheting behavior of 304LN stainless
search (CSIR), New Delhi, India for awarding the Senior Research
Fellowship to Mr. Surajit Kumar Paul and financially supporting
him in the pursuance of his research study. The authors wish to
thank The Director, National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur,
India for providing all the necessary facilities in carrying out this
study.
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