Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Ratcheting Effects in 316L Stainless Steel - The Two-Rod approach.

Abstract: This Master’s Thesis was conducted during spring 2014. An experimental and numerical investigation was conducted on the austenitic 316L stainless steel. The main focus of the study was the investigation of ratcheting effects. Experimentally, the main focus was the two-rod test, which had not been conducted previously. The two-rod test resembles a structure and a load case where ratcheting effects may be produced, although being less complicated than structures used in prior studies. Furthermore, the stress state in the structure is uniaxial. Other tests were also performed to characterize the material. Based on results from uniaxial tensile tests and fully reversed strain cycling of 316L, four material models were calibrated. The four material models were  Bi-linear kinematic hardening model  Multilinear kinematic hardening model (Mróz)  Armstrong-Frederick non-linear kinematic hardening model  Chaboche non-linear kinematic hardening model with three superimposed back-stress     tensors. The two-rod test was then numerically simulated with different material models. The results from the FE simulations were then compared to the test results obtained from the two-rod tests. The goal, apart from investigating the ratcheting effects in 316L steel, was to evaluate the material models’ ability to reproduce the two-rod test results. The results from the comparison suggest that the bi-linear and the multilinear material model agreed with the test results to a larger extent than the Armstrong-Frederick and Chaboche model. The two non-linear hardening material models predicted in most cases a constant ratcheting rate which did not agree with the test results. Even though the predictions of the two-rod tests with the bilinear and the multilinear models generally was better than predictions with the two non-linear hardening material models, the bilinear and the multilinear models predicted plastic shakedown in certain cases which was not observed in the tests. The employment of an isotropic part in the non-linear kinematic hardening material models might have improved the simulations’ agreement to experimental results. The setup for the two-rod test proved robust and reliable. The results suggest that structural ratcheting effects dominate the two-rod test results. Furthermore, the comparison between simulations and the two-rod tests suggest that a more advanced material model does not necessarily yield in a better prediction.