See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/231537654

True stress-controlled ratcheting behavior of 304LN stainless steel

Article  in  Journal of Materials Science · June 2012

DOI: 10.1007/s10853-012-6334-1

CITATIONS READS

16 100

4 authors:

Surajit Kumar Paul S. Sivaprasad

Indian Institute of Technology Patna National Metallurgical Laboratory
61 PUBLICATIONS   719 CITATIONS    114 PUBLICATIONS   1,104 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

s. Dhar S. Tarafder
Jadavpur University National Metallurgical Laboratory
42 PUBLICATIONS   411 CITATIONS    151 PUBLICATIONS   1,523 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Fatigue and fracture of structural materials View project

Automated failure detection View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Surajit Kumar Paul on 15 January 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

True stress-controlled ratcheting behavior
of 304LN stainless steel

Surajit Kumar Paul, S. Sivaprasad,

S. Dhar & S. Tarafder

Journal of Materials Science

Full Set - Includes `Journal of Materials
Science Letters'

ISSN 0022-2461
Volume 47
Number 11

J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660-4672

DOI 10.1007/s10853-012-6334-1

1 23
Your article is protected by copyright and
all rights are held exclusively by Springer
Science+Business Media, LLC. This e-offprint
is for personal use only and shall not be self-
archived in electronic repositories. If you
wish to self-archive your work, please use the
accepted author’s version for posting to your
own website or your institution’s repository.
You may further deposit the accepted author’s
version on a funder’s repository at a funder’s
request, provided it is not made publicly
available until 12 months after publication.

1 23
 Author's personal copy
J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672
DOI 10.1007/s10853-012-6334-1
True stress-controlled ratcheting behavior of 304LN stainless steel
Surajit Kumar Paul • S. Sivaprasad •
S. Dhar • S. Tarafder
Received: 26 November 2011 / Accepted: 10 February 2012 / Published online: 28 February 2012
Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract Cyclic plastic deformation response of materi-
als under asymmetric stress cycling is known as ratcheting.
Combined effect of fatigue and permanent tensile strain
accumulation results in early failure of materials during
ratcheting. For this reason, ratcheting should be empha-
sized in the safety assessment and life estimation of engi-
neering structures. Engineering and true stress-controlled
ratcheting behavior of 304LN stainless steel has been
carried out at room temperature. Effects of stress ampli-
tude, mean stress, and their histories (i.e., step loading) on
the ratcheting behavior are analyzed in this investigation. It
is noticed that under true stress-controlled ratcheting
experiments, ratcheting life increases in presence of mean
stress, and hysteresis loop area and plastic strain energy
decreases with the increasing mean stress. A comparison
has also been drawn in between the true and engineering
stress-controlled tests, and massive differences in ratchet-
ing life and strain accumulation were found. Ratcheting
strain accumulation ceases in descending step loading, is
noticed in this work.
S. K. Paul (&)
Research and Development, Tata Steel Limited,
Jamshedpur 831001, India
e-mail: paulsurajit@yahoo.co.in
S. K. Paul  S. Dhar
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jadavpur University,
Kolkata 700 032, India
S. Sivaprasad  S. Tarafder
Materials Science and Technology Division, National
Metallurgical Laboratory, Council of Scientific and Industrial
Research, Jamshedpur 831 007, India
123
Introduction
Ratcheting (known as cyclic creep too) can be defined as
the progressive directional accumulation of permanent
strain due to asymmetric stress cycling which can be
achieved by maintaining unequal stress levels in tension
and compression during cycling. Materials can show rat-
cheting, if the stress amplitude is high enough and ensuring
that materials yielding takes place. During asymmetric
stress cycling, the difference in peak stress levels during
tension and compression can lead to non-closure of the
hysteresis loop, and that causes the shifting of loop along
the direction of strain axis. Small plastic deformation even
may be sufficient to initiate ratcheting and small ratcheting
rate can also lead to substantial strain accumulation over
large number of cycles.
Ratcheting is a secondary deformation process that
proceeds cycle by cycle. It can deteriorate the performance
of a component due to cumulative effect of fatigue damage,
which arises from absorption of plastic strain energy and
damage by permanent strain accumulation in a particular
direction, as a result of which it leads to further enhance-
ment of fatigue damage by continuous thinning out of the
cross-sectional area. Ratcheting phenomenon can be illus-
trated through a block diagram as depicted in Fig. 1. Two
damaging mechanisms, accumulation of ratcheting strain
and fatigue damage, act together and lead to early failure of
materials. Ratcheting can be influenced by loading condi-
tions, i.e., mean stress and stress amplitude and prior
loading history which are examined in this work.
Realizing the importance of ratcheting, a number of
investigations were carried out in last three decades to
understand and model the ratcheting behavior of materials.
All those investigations in general, can be broadly catego-
rized into (a) studies on laboratory specimens [1–15] and
 Author's personal copy
J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672
Asymmetric stress cycling
(amplitude and mean stress)
Prior loading history Material
Ratcheting
Directional strain
Fatigue damage
accumulation
Early failure of material
Fig. 1 Block diagram of ratcheting
(b) those on full scale components [16]. Maximum works on
laboratory specimens were carried out by employing a cyclic
waveform, usually under load/engineering stress control
which is based on original dimensions of the specimens,
[4–15] and only few works were conducted in true stress
controlling mode [3, 17]. However, specimen’s cross section
is expected to be altered with ratcheting strain accumulation
[3, 17]. If appropriate, dimensional corrections with rat-
cheting strain accumulation are not accounted for, the true
mean stress and true stress amplitude during the experi-
mentation are liable to increase uncontrollably, leading to
overload failure rather than failure due to fatigue [17].
It is often very difficult to decide what percentage of
strain accumulation should be considered as significant (or
insignificant) to cause dimensional alterations in the test
specimen; so that an appropriate correction in the load
cycle can be made (or not required to be made). Study of
the ratcheting behavior under true stress control is the
safest method, since true stress and true strain are the actual
material responses under external loads [18]. At the same
time, engineering stress-control ratcheting experiment is
equally important because in actual operating condition
measurement and controlling of true stress–strain is not
possible. It would also be quite interesting at this point to
examine the ratcheting behavior under both true stress and
engineering stress-controlled cyclic loading and how the
ratcheting life will be differing in these two cases. Such an
investigation would probably answer the confusion raised
at the beginning of this paragraph.
Ratcheting behavior not only depends on the material
but also on the loading condition and the loading history.
Material exhibits a strong memory on the previous loading
history, and such memory plays a sensitive role on sub-
sequent ratcheting [19, 20]. In general, ratcheting strain
accumulation takes place in the direction of mean stress
4661
[1–15, 17–20]. Monotonic pre-stressing may affect rat-
cheting strain, and that may reduce the ratcheting rate or
may drive ratcheting in reversed direction [19, 20]. Effect
of pre-stress cycling at different loading conditions and its
effect on subsequent ratcheting behavior have been studied
to understand material’s memory effect.
Continuous loading refers to the loading path, where
constant maximum and minimum stresses are maintained
throughout the experiment. When the loading path, i.e., the
mean stress or stress amplitude varies intermittently after
certain number of cycles, the experiment is classified as
step loading. In engineering stress-controlled step loading,
test was performed on SS304LN stainless steel, ratcheting
strain was increased with variation of mean stress in
ascending order at constant stress amplitude [9]. In this
study, a systematic experimentation has been done to
understand the material’s ratcheting response in both
ascending and descending order step loading.
In this work, uniaxial ratcheting behavior of 304LN
stainless steel has been studied using both engineering and
true stress-controlled cyclic loading, with an objective to
examine their relative influences on the ratcheting strain
accumulation, and hence on the life. It must be mentioned
here that the 304LN stainless steel is a candidate material
for the primary heat transport piping of pressurized heavy
water reactors in Indian nuclear power plants and ratchet-
ing behavior is an important issue for structural integrity. A
number of literatures are available, where investigations on
engineering stress-controlled ratcheting behavior were
conducted on this steel [3–11]. However, as mentioned
earlier, the true stress-controlled experiments in these
investigations are expected to portray the actual material’s
behavior, and thereby improve the understanding of rat-
cheting behavior in this steel.
Experimentation
AISI 304LN austenitic stainless steel was available in the
form of pipe with 320-mm outer diameter and 25-mm
thickness. Its 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
7-mm gauge diameter and 13-mm gauge length were
machined from the pipe in such a way that the loading axis
of the specimens was parallel to the pipe axis. A detail of
experimental setup is shown in Fig. 2a. Specimen geome-
try is shown in Fig. 2b. The tensile properties of the
material are given in Table 1.
Uniaxial ratcheting experiments were conducted on
those specimens using a 100 kN closed loop servo-electric
testing system which was attached to a computerized data
acquisition system. All experiments were conducted in
123
 Author's personal copy
4662 J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672

such frequencies, that a constant stress rate of 50 MPa/sec
was maintained throughout the investigation. The details
of loading conditions are presented in Tables 2, and 3
accordingly. A 12.5-mm gauge length extensometer was
used to measure the strain. The extensometer can measure
strain up to ?100% (?12.5 mm travel) in tensile direction
and -40% (-5 mm travel) in compressive direction.
During experimentation, at least 200 data points per cycle
were collected for further analyses. True stress-controlled
tests were conducted under software control running on a
computer interfaced to the control system of the testing
machine. For true stress-controlled tests, the feedback from
the extensometer was used to compute true strain and from
there the true stress continuously. Applied loads were
concomitantly altered to maintain true stress amplitude and
mean as per the test specification.
Few engineering stress-controlled experiments were
carried out at identical test condition to compare the results
with true stress-controlled tests. All tests were conducted in
ambient temperature and laboratory environment. To avoid
buckling during ratcheting experimentation with compres-
sive mean stress, low gauge length (L) to diameter ratio
(d) (i.e., l/d \2.0) was maintained in all specimens. Of
course, machine alignment and specimen eccentricity were
also responsible for buckling of specimens.

(a) Results and discussion

Extensometer Grip Jaw
Ratcheting is the accumulation of permanent strain under
stress cycling with non-zero mean stress and its progression
Specimen
is significantly dependent upon loading factors, such as
stress level, loading history, stress rate, and loading path.
Ratcheting strain (er) in a particular cycle can be repre-
sented as the center-position of a hysteresis loop on the
Grip Jaw
strain axis, i.e., half of the summation of maximum strain
(emax) and minimum strain (emin) of that loop.
1
(b) R25
er ¼ ðemax þ emin Þ: ð1Þ
2
Ratcheting strain rate (der) can be expressed as the
11
7

13
difference between the center-position of a hysteresis loop
40 along the strain axis at nth and (n ? 1)th number cycle.

Fig. 2 a Uniaxial test setup b Uniaxial specimen geometry (dimensions der ¼ e_ r ¼ er jnþ1 er jn ð2Þ
are in mm)
where er jnþ1 and er jn are the ratcheting strains at (n ? 1)th
and nth number of cycle.
Table 1 Tensile properties of 304LN stainless steel
Need for true stress-controlled ratcheting experiments
Yield stress Ultimate tensile Uniform Total
(MPa) stress (MPa) elongation (%) elongation (%)
Accumulation of engineering ratcheting strain with number
353 671 52.8 69.62 of cycles at constant engineering mean stress of 120 MPa

Table 2 Asymmetric cyclic

Test condition True stress-controlled test Engineering stress-controlled test
plastic test conditions,
ratcheting strain with number of Mean Stress Number of True ratcheting Number of Engineering
cycles of failure: engineering stress amplitude cycle to failure strain (%) cycle to failure ratcheting
and true stress-controlled test (MPa) (MPa) strain (%)

180 420 6338 24.69 212 91.90

120 420 3683 19.53 743 92.86
60 420 1981 18.15 916 54.89
-60 420 837 -14.5 1351 -12.0
120 360 6967 18.65 3730 45.95
120 300 13918 8.35 8730 17.45
0 420 674 3.7 612 5.6

123
 Author's personal copy
J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672 4663

Table 3 Step loading: loading conditions (Unit: MPa, true stress) with number of cycles
Steps no Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4
Test con. Cy no Test con. Cy no Test con. Cy no Test con. Cy no

Step 1 120 ± 300 3480 60 ± 420 495 180 ± 420 1585 120 ± 420 920
Step 2 120 ± 360 2185 120 ± 420 920 120 ± 420 920 120 ± 360 2185
Step 3 120 ± 420 1122 180 ± 420 2918 60 ± 420 6400 120 ± 300 8946

True stress amplitude, MPa

For 93.0% engineering ratcheting strain accumulation,
1000 Engineering stress amplitude, MPa 100 before specimen failure in engineering stress-controlled

Engineering ratcheting strain, %

True maximum stress, MPa
Engineering maximum stress, MPa test, results in 48.2% area reduction as computed from
900 80
Engineering ratcheting strain, % Eq. 5 ,and 1.93 times hike in true stress, calculated from
Eq. 4. In this engineering stress-controlled ratcheting test,
Stress, MPa

800
60
true stress amplitude increases uncontrollably, whereas
700 engineering stress amplitude maintains a constant value as
40
shown in Fig. 3. Ide et al. have also documented the
600 increase in maximum tensile stress due to progression of
20
axial strain during load cycling on brass [3]. Accumulation
500
0
of such large axial strain occurs at the expense of dia-
304LN stainless steel
400
metrical contraction of the specimen; therefore, an
-100 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 uncontrolled variation of maximum true stress. It is also
Number of cycles noticed during the course of engineering stress-controlled
experiments that a visible necking forms in the specimen,
Fig. 3 Engineering stress-controlled test: maximum stress, stress
amplitude, and ratcheting strain versus number of cycles; mean stress resulting in an abrupt increase in the true stress level. As
of 120 MPa and stress amplitude of 420 MPa the material’s behavior is related to true stress–strain, any
variation in true stress is liable to alter the material’s per-
and stress amplitude of 420 MPa is shown in Fig. 3. In this formances. It is therefore prudent to study the ratcheting
experiment, 93% engineering ratcheting strain accumula- behavior of the materials under true stress control.
tion has been noticed. True strain refers to the ratio of As per the experimental observation, 93.0% elongation is
change in gauge length to instantaneous gauge length achieved in engineering stress-controlled ratcheting test,
which can be described by Eq. 3. whereas uniform elongation during tensile test of this
material is around 52.8%. So, material can accommodate
ZL  
DL L much higher strain during ratcheting without necking. Ini-
er ¼ ¼ ln ¼ ln ð1 þ er Þ: ð3Þ tiation of micro void is the probable cause of necking and
L L0
L0 their coalescence leads to failure [21–23]. Local instability/
necking in tensile test starts at the point of ultimate tensile
Assuming metal volume is not changing, true stress can stress. Therefore, it can be said from Fig. 4 that necking
be determined from Eq 4. starts when the true stress reaches a critical value which is
equal to true ultimate tensile stress. Both engineering stress
r ¼ Sð1 þ er Þ ð4Þ and strain increases with time during tensile test, but in the
where r and er are the true stress and the ratcheting strain, case of ratcheting maximum engineering stress is main-
respectively; S and er are the engineering stress and the tained a constant value as shown in Fig. 4, and accumulated
ratcheting strain, respectively; L0 and L are the initial and engineering strain increases with time. Combined influence
final gauge lengths of the specimen, respectively. of both engineering stress and strain are reflected in true
Amount of area reduction can be calculated from vol- stress calculation as shown in Eq. 4. To reach a true ulti-
ume incompressibility condition, as shown in Eq. 5. mate tensile stress, for high value of engineering uniform
tensile stress, low engineering uniform tensile strain is
DA er
¼ ð5Þ required, whereas for low value of maximum engineering
A 1 þ er
stress during ratcheting (as engineering uniform tensile
where A is the original cross-sectional area and DA is the stress is higher than the maximum engineering stress during
reduction in cross sectional area at er engineering ratcheting ratcheting), comparatively high value of engineering rat-
strain. cheting strain is required. Therefore, engineering ratcheting

123
 Author's personal copy
4664 J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672

1100 (a) 800

1000

900 600 1-3C 50C 500C 1500C 3600C

800

True stress, MPa

400
700
Stress, MPa

600
200
500

400
True stress-strain 0
300 Tensile
Ratcheting
200 Engineering stress-strain -200
Tensile
100 Ratcheting

0 -400
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
Strain, % True strain, %

Fig. 4 Engineering stress–strain and true stress–strain plot for tensile (b) 500
and ratcheting (engineering stress-controlled ratcheting test conducted
400 820C 600C 400C 200C 100C 50C 1-5C
at mean stress of 120 MPa and stress amplitude of 420 MPa) tests
300

200
strain is higher than engineering uniform tensile strain to True stress, MPa
reach a constant true ultimate tensile stress. Hence, it is 100

thought to be the probable cause of higher ratcheting strain 0

accumulation in engineering stress-controlled ratcheting -100
than uniform engineering tensile strain before necking. -200

-300
True stress-controlled uniaxial ratcheting in continuous
-400
loading
-500

Figure 5a, b shows the asymmetrical stress–strain responses -600

of 304LN stainless steel for selected loading cycles. It has
been observed that hysteresis loop shifting with cycling
along the strain axis due to non-closure of hysteresis loop.
Accumulation of ratcheting strain takes place in the mean
stress direction, i.e., tensile (compressive) mean stress
results tensile (compressive) ratcheting strain [17–20]. This
can also be observed in Fig. 5a, b where tensile mean stress
of 120 MPa and compressive mean stress of 60 MPa are
applied, respectively.
The evolution of ratcheting strain under true stress
control test in 304LN stainless steel is shown in Fig. 6. The
results infer that at constant mean stress, with increase in
stress amplitude the tensile ratcheting strain accumulation
increases and fatigue life decreases. Similar kind of rat-
cheting behavior was also reported for 1026 carbon steel
[14], for SS304 stainless steel [9, 10], and for SA333
C–Mn steel [13] in engineering stress-controlled experi-
ments. Results at constant stress amplitude and varying
magnitudes of mean stress are shown in Fig. 7. It is doc-
umented that both ratcheting strain accumulation and
fatigue life increases with increasing mean stress.
The improvement in fatigue life with increasing mean
stress can be explained by absorption plastic strain energy
-15.0 -12.5 -10.0 -7.5 -5.0 -2.5 0.0
True strain, %
Fig. 5 Shifting of hysteresis loop along the strain axis a mean stress
120 MPa and stress amplitude 420 MPa b mean stress -60 MPa and
stress amplitude 420 MPa
during cyclic deformation. Plastic strain energy during
cyclic deformation can be estimated from the area enclosed
by stress–strain hysteresis loop. As a general rule, if the
hysteresis loop area is more, the lesser will be the fatigue
life, as more energy is expected to be absorbed by the
material [24, 25]. To investigate this aspect, hysteresis loop
areas of saturated cycles (Nf/2; where Nf is the number of
cycles to failure) have been estimated and plotted against
the applied mean stress in Fig. 8. The corresponding evo-
lution of plastic strain amplitude with mean stress is also
included in this figure. Taking zero mean stress condition
as reference, it may be noted from Fig. 8 that hysteresis
loop area and plastic strain amplitude decreases with
increasing mean stress in both tensile and compressive
directions. Therefore, for 304LN stainless steel, it appears
that increasing mean stress leads to decrease in both plastic

123
 Author's personal copy
J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672 4665

25 7000 18
Number of cycle
Mean stress 120 MPa Hysteresis loop area, MJ/m2 2.5 16

Hysteresis loop area, MJ/m 2

Stress amplitude

Plastic strain amplitude, %

6000 Plastic strain amplitude, %
420 MPa 14
20 360 MPa 2.0

Number of cycles
True ratcheting strain, %

5000
300 MPa 12
4000 1.5 10
15 8
3000
1.0 6
2000
10 4
0.5
1000 2

0 0.0 0
5 -100 -50 0 50 100 150 200
Mean stress, MPa

0 Fig. 8 Number of cycles to failure, hysteresis loop area and plastic

0 2500 5000 7500 10000 12500 15000 strain amplitude versus mean stress: constant stress amplitude of
Number of cycles 420 MPa and mean stress of -60, 0, 60, 120, and 180 MPa

Fig. 6 True ratcheting strain versus number of cycles: constant mean

stress of 120 MPa and stress amplitude of 300, 360, and 420 MPa clearly indicates that 304LN stainless steel undergoes
hardening in presence of mean stress. Similar observation
25 was found in SA333 C–Mn steel [12, 17]. When the mean
20
stress is low, the material can accommodate larger plastic
strains than the higher magnitudes of mean stress. At low
15 magnitudes of mean stress, the cyclic damage applied to
Ratcheting strain, %

the material is therefore expected to be more than the

10
5 fatigue life of the 304LN stainless steel at low magnitudes
0
-5
-10
-15
0 1000 2000 3000
Number of cycles
Fig. 7 True ratcheting strain versus number of cycles: constant stress
amplitude of 420 MPa and mean stress of -60, 0, 60, 120, and
180 MPa
strain amplitude and plastic strain energy, as a result of
which fatigue life increases.
During cyclic deformation process, a material can be
cyclically hardened or softened depending on its defor-
mation characteristics. Normally, during cyclic deforma-
tion hard material is expected to soften and vice versa. One
way to represent the material’s cyclic hardening/softening
response is to examine the change in plastic strain energy/
hysteresis loop area and plastic strain amplitude/hysteresis
loop width for stress-controlled deformation, and change in
plastic strain energy/hysteresis loop area and hysteresis
loop height/stress amplitude for strain controlled defor-
mation [18]. In this investigation, systematic decrease in
both the plastic strain energy and plastic strain amplitude
with increasing mean stress is noticed in Fig. 8. This
highest mean stress level. This explains the relative low
Stress amplitude 420 MPa of mean stress levels.
Mean stress In order to visually represent the mean stress-dependent
180 MPa
120 MPa hardening in 304LN stainless steel, the stress–strain
60 MPa
0 MPa responses of the material at saturated cycles are plotted in
-60 MPa Fig. 9a, b for actual hysteresis loop position and translated
position of hysteresis loops where negative peaks are
4000 5000 6000 7000 translated to common coordinate axis, respectively. It may
be noted that all the hysteresis loops are translated to a
common origin for the purpose of comparison as given in
the Fig. 9b. Two things can immediately be noticed from
this figure: with increasing mean stress (i) size of the hys-
teresis loops get reduced and (ii) non-linear portion of the
loading branch becomes steeper. First observation indicates
that the plastic strain (width of the hysteresis loop), a
damage representative parameter, decreases with increas-
ing mean stress, and both observations are the manifestation
of increase in the material’s hardening characteristics.
The facts presented here thus clearly indicate that 304LN
stainless steel shows a mean stress-dependent hardening
during asymmetric cyclic deformation. Similar mean stress
depending hardening are also reported by others in engi-
neering stress-controlled experiments for: carbon steel
[26, 27], 304 stainless steel [28–30], polycrystalline copper
[31–33], and polycrystalline nickel [34], and for true stress-
controlled experiment in SA333 C–Mn steel [8, 17].
Change in cyclic hardening/softening response is
explained in Fig. 10a, b. Change of plastic strain energy and

123
 Author's personal copy
4666 J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672

(a) 600 Stress amplitude (a) 18

Stress amplitude 420 MPa
420 MPa Mean stress
500 mean stress 0 MPa
180 MPa 15 60 MPa

Hysteresis loop anergy, MJ/m2

400 120 MPa -60 MPa
60 MPa 120 MPa
300
-60 MPa
True stress, MPa

12 180 MPa
200 0 MPa

100
9
0

-100
6
-200

-300
3
-400

-500
0
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
True strain, % Life fraction
(b) 1000
(b) Stress amplitude 420 MPa
Mean stress
1.25
0 MPa
800 60 MPa

PLastic strain amplitude, %

-60 MPa
1.00 120 MPa
True stress, MPa

180 MPa
600

0.75

400
Stress amplitude
420 MPa 0.50
mean stress
180 MPa
200 120 MPa
60 MPa 0.25
-60 MPa
0 MPa
0
0.00
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
True strain, % Life fraction
Fig. 9 True stress versus strain plot of saturated cycles: constant
Fig. 10 Test condition: stress amplitude of 420 MPa and mean stress
stress amplitude of 420 MPa and mean stress of -60, 0, 60, 120, and
of -60, 0, 60, 120, and 180 MPa a life fraction versus plastic strain
180 MPa a hysteresis loops are in actual position b negative peaks are
energy b life fraction versus plastic strain amplitude
translated to common zero axis

plastic strain amplitude with life fractions (ratio of number
of cycles to the number of cycles to failure) are plotted in
Fig. 10a and b, respectively. It is observed from these fig-
ures that at zero mean stress condition, initially there is
declination of both plastic strain energy and plastic strain
amplitude for very small life fraction; after that continuous
increment has been noticed. It is clearly revealed that after
few initial cycles of hardening at zero mean stress condi-
tion, the material gradually softens. In the presence of mean
stress both plastic strain energy and plastic strain amplitude
initially decrease followed by maintaining almost constant
values, which indicate that material exhibits cyclic hard-
ening at the beginning and then gradually becomes sta-
bled (material shows neither hardening nor softening).
Figure 10a, b explains that the presence of mean stress and
ratcheting strain accumulation changes the hardening/soft-
ening behavior of 304LN stainless steel. In this context,
Jiang and Zhang [35] also reported the separate material
hardening during ratcheting and this was associated with
ratcheting rate decay.
Ratcheting strain and life trends
Loading condition, i.e., mean stress and stress amplitude,
and mechanical properties of materials have dominating
effect in evolution of ratcheting strain. According to cyclic
plasticity models [36–38], material should be deformed
elastically up to twice the cyclic yield stress in each branch
of the hysteresis loop. At this double value of cyclic yield
stress, i.e., if elastic loading–unloading is excluded from
each of the hysteresis loop branches, then ratcheting strain
accumulation becomes a function of back stress amplitude
and mean stress. A parameter which can be represented by
Eq 6 is used to predict ratcheting strain [17].

123
 Author's personal copy
J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672 4667

ðra  ry Þ aa 14000
Experimental data point
ar ¼ rm ¼ rm ð6Þ Fitted
ðrUT  ry Þ as
12000
where ar is the representative back stress, er is the true
ratcheting strain, ra is the true stress amplitude, rm is the 10000

Number of cycle
true mean stress, ry is the cyclic yield stress, rUT is the true 8000
ultimate tensile stress, aa is the back stress amplitude.
The ratcheting strain can be determined from Eq. 7 [17]. 6000

er ¼ Kar ð7Þ 4000

where K is the material parameter which is determined by 2000

linear fitting in ar versus er plot.
0 Nf=80000 Exp(-0.0132σr)
It can be seen form Fig. 11 that the ratcheting strain has
a linear relation with the representative back stress as per 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Eq.7 with K = 0.78. In this figure, one point is lying out- Representative back stress, MPa
side the factor-2 line and it is for the zero mean stress
Fig. 12 Ratcheting life variation with representative stress amplitude
condition. Theoretically, there should not be any ratcheting
at symmetric stress cycling (i.e., zero mean stress), but
small amount of ratcheting strain evolution has been Nf ¼ 80000 expð0:0123rr Þ
observed during experimentation.
Loading conditions affect the material’s ratcheting life.
Comparison between engineering and true
A parameter, representative stress amplitude [17], can be
stress-controlled experiments
defined by Eq. 8, and it shows a fine relationship with
number of cycles for failure in ratcheting.
  In order to draw the differences between engineering and
jrmin j true stress-controlled ratcheting behavior, some of the tests
rr ¼ ra R ¼ ra ð8Þ
jrmax j are conducted under engineering stress-controlled mode.
Engineering stress-controlled experiments are conducted
where rr is the representative stress amplitude, rmin and
by keeping all other experimental conditions identical with
rmax are the minimum stress and maximum stress during
true stress-controlled tests. Ide et al. [3] conducted both
cycling, respectively.
load and true stress-controlled tests on brass, and they
For 304LN stainless steel ratcheting life is portrayed
found that the tertiary region of cyclic creep (ratcheting)
with representative stress amplitude in Fig. 12; the curve is
curve was absent during true stress-controlled test, i.e.,
exponentially decaying in nature. The equation of the fitted
only primary and secondary regions present, whereas pri-
curve can be written as
mary, secondary, and tertiary regions were present in the
cyclic creep (ratcheting) curve during load-controlled
cycling.
30 Comparisons of engineering and true stress-controlled
ratcheting strain with number of cycles in 304LN stainless
steel are shown in Fig. 13a, b. Figure 13a demonstrates the
20
variation of ratcheting strain with number of cycles at
True ratcheting strain, %

different mean stresses, and Fig. 13b demonstrates the

10 evolution of ratcheting strain with number of cycles at
various stress amplitudes. The comparison of ratcheting
strain and life between engineering and true stress-
0
controlled ratcheting tests are shown in Table 2. Engineer-
ing stress-controlled experiments in presence of tensile mean
-10
Experimental data point stress lead to rapid increase in the ratcheting strain accu-
Fitted (εr=0.78 σr )
ε r=0.78* 2σr mulation and hence lower the life, in comparison with that
ε r=0.78 σr /2 of the similar tests conducted under true stress-controlled
-20 experiments. It is noticed during engineering controlled
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50
experiments with tensile mean stress that true stress con-
Representative back stress, MPa
tinuously increases with the number of cycles, whereas true
Fig. 11 Ratcheting strain variation with representative back stress stress remain constant throughout the true stress-controlled

123
 Author's personal copy
4668 J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672

(a) 100 ratcheting life. As discussed in Figs. 6 and 7 that change in

Stress amplitude 420 MPa
True mean stress the true stress level (i.e., mean stress or stress amplitude)
180 MPa results in alteration of ratcheting strain evolution and rat-
80
120 MPa
60 MPa cheting life. The material’s behavior is related to true stress–
Ratcheting strain, %

0 MPa
60 -60 MPa
strain state rather than engineering stress–strain [17]. After
Engg. mean stress certain number cycles, as difference exists in cyclic true
180 MPa
40 120 MPa stress levels (discussed in Fig. 3) in-between engineering
60 MPa and true stress-controlled tests, magnitude of ratcheting
-60 MPa
20
strain accumulation is expected to be altered. As discussed in
Fig. 3, in engineering stress-controlled ratcheting test with
mean stress of 120 MPa and stress amplitude of 420 MPa,
0
after 400 cycles, 31.327% engineering ratcheting strain is
noticed, which enhance true mean stress to 157.6 MPa and
-20
1 10 100 1000 10000 stress amplitude to 551.6 MPa. Therefore, it can be said that
Number of cycles engineering stress-controlled ratcheting test is a combina-
tion of true stress-controlled test, true stress increases with
(b) 100 Constant mean stress 120 MPa tensile ratcheting strain and vice versa. Similarly, true stress-
Stress amplitude in MPa controlled test is also a combination of engineering stress
Eng. stress controlled
80 420 i.e., load-controlled test, in which engineering stress
360 decreases with tensile ratcheting strain and vice versa.
300
Ratcheting strain, %

True stress controlled
420
60
360
300
40
20
0 itself and it progresses with cycling. Amount of deviation
1 10 100
Number of cycles
Fig. 13 Comparison between true and engineering stress-controlled
ratcheting tests: Ratcheting strain versus number of cycles a at
constant stress amplitude of 420 MPa and mean stress of -60, 0, 60,
120, and 180 MPa b at constant mean stress of 120 MPa and stress
amplitude of 300, 360, and 420 MPa
experiments (Fig. 3). Moreover, in the engineering stress-
controlled experiments, formation of a visible necking is
noticed in presence of tensile mean stress, which leads to
the abrupt increase in the strain accumulation before final
fracture. Presence of compressive mean stress drives the
ratcheting strain in compressive direction and as a result of
which true stress amplitude reduces with cycling. There-
fore, engineering stress-controlled experiment with com-
pressive mean stress leads to higher life and lesser
ratcheting strain.
The evolution of ratcheting under the true-stress-
controlled cyclic loading is very similar to that observed
under the engineering stress-controlled (i.e., force-con-
trolled) cyclic loading which is reported in the literatures
[1–15]; the differences only occur in the magnitude of
ratcheting strain accumulation after certain cycles and
Therefore, as test conditions, i.e., engineering or true mean
stress and stress amplitude are not same in two test con-
trolling conditions, the test results, i.e., ratcheting strain and
life are different.
However, it can be seen that it is difficult to specify a
strain limit or a cycle limit below which an engineering
stress-controlled test would yield acceptable results of
material’s behavior. The deviation in ratcheting strain
accumulation in two testing mode starts from first cycle
1000 10000
between two test controlling modes depends upon test
parameters like mean stress, stress amplitude, and test
temperature etc. It is thus justified to state that true stress-
controlled tests are preferred to understand and interpret
material’s behavior under ratcheting conditions.
True stress-controlled uniaxial ratcheting in step
loading
Stress–strain responses of the materials under asymmetric
stress cycling are identified as ratcheting. When dealing with
the ratcheting, a critical question may arise as to whether the
asymmetric stress–strain responses are loading history
dependent or not. Because in actual operating condition,
loading condition (i.e., mean stress and stress amplitude) is
expected to be altered with cycling. To accrue knowledge
about the material’s load history dependency, experimen-
tation with step loading (high–low/low–high loading
sequence) is essential. In high-low loading sequence (step
loading), specimen is subjected to high constant amplitude
stress (or strain) till saturation, and followed by comparable
lower constant stress (or strain) amplitude loading. If the
stress–strain response in the second loading step (lower

123
 Author's personal copy
J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672 4669

Fig. 14 Step loading: (Row 1) 1a 1b 20

constant mean stress of Constant mean stress 120 MPa

True ratcheting strain, %

Stress amplitude
120 MPa and stress amplitude 300 MPa
varies in ascending order of 300, 360 MPa
15 420 MPa
360, and 420 MPa 1a schematic
diagram of changing stress
10
amplitude with time 1b

Row 1
accumulation of ratcheting
strain with cycle (Row 2) 5
constant stress amplitude of
420 MPa and mean stress 0
changes in ascending order of 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000
60, 120, and 180 MPa 2a
Number of cycles
schematic diagram of changing
mean stress with time 2b 2a 2b
40
accumulation of ratcheting

True ratcheting strain, %

strain with cycle (Row 3) 35
constant stress amplitude of 30
420 MPa and mean stress varies 25
Row 2

in descending order of 180, 120,

20
and 60 MPa 3a schematic
diagram of changing mean 15
Stress amplitude 420 MPa
stress with time 3b ratcheting 10 Mean stress
60 MPa
strain evolution with cycle (Row 5 120 MPa
180 MPa
4) constant mean stress of
0
120 MPa and stress amplitude 0 1000 2000 3000 4000
varies in descending order of
420, 360, and 300 MPa 4a
Number of cycles
schematic diagram of changing
mean stress with time 4b 3a 3b 18
ratcheting strain evolution with 16

Ratcheting strain, %
Stress
cycle 14
Row 3

12

Mean stress 3
10
Mean stress 2
8 Stress amplitude 420 MPa
Mean stress 1 Mean stress in MPa
6 180
Time 120
60
4
0 2000 4000 6000 8000
Number of cycles
4a 4b
17.5
304LN stainless steel
True ratcheting strain, %

15.0
Stress 12.5
Stress amplitude 1

Stress amplitude 2
10.0
Stress amplitude 3
7.5
Row 4

Mean stress 5.0 Constant mean stress 120 MPa

Stress amplitude
Time
2.5 420 MPa
360 MPa
300 MPa
0.0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000
Number of cycles

amplitude) is practically dissimilar to that obtained with
identical (to the lower amplitude) amplitude but without a
prior loading history, the material is said to display load
history dependency. Zhang and Jiang [39] found in their
strain-controlled experiments on a textured OFHC poly-
crystalline copper that a prior large loading history practi-
cally had no influence on the saturated stress amplitude, but
at initial cycles, stress amplitude had significant differences,
which indicates that the prior loading history is gradu-
ally wiped away as cycling proceeds. In this work, effects
of prior loading histories on subsequent ratcheting are
examined.
Test matrix for step loading is tabulated in Table 3. For
those combinations of mean stress and stress amplitude for

123
 Author's personal copy
4670 J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672

true stress-controlled tests, number of cycles to failure in Xn

Ni N1 N2 N3
continuous loading is given in Table 2. Experiments are ¼ þ þ þ ... ¼ 1 ð9Þ
i¼1
Nif N 1f N 2f N 3f
conducted in such a way that stress amplitude or mean
stress changes after continuous cycling of 0.25 life fraction where N1, N2, and N3 and N1f, N2f, and N3f are the number
in step loading. It is expected that after cycling 25% of total of cycles in a step loading and number of cycles to failure
number of cycles to failure, material stress–strain response in continuous loading in 1, 2, and 3 loading conditions,
should be stabilized. Increase of stress amplitude in respectively. For this step loading, summation of life
ascending order for step loading is tabulated at ‘‘test 1’’ fraction is 0.81 which is determined by Eq. 9.
column in Table 3. For the same test, a block diagram of Mean stress variation in ascending order for step loading
stress variation with time is displayed in Fig. 141a. is tabulated at ‘‘test 2’’ column in Table 3. Figure 142a
Figures 141b and 15a show the ratcheting strain and hys- shows the variation of mean stress with time at fixed stress
teresis loop evolution with number of cycles, respectively. amplitude and Fig. 142b shows the ratcheting strain evo-
Miner linear damage law [40] states that summation of life lution with cycles; also stress–strain response is depicted in
fraction in a random loading should be equal to one. It can Pn
Ni
Fig. 15b. From this test, the value of Nif is appeared as
be expressed as i¼1
0.961 which is very close to 1. From the above discussion it
can be concluded that the changes of mean stress and stress
(a) 600 amplitude in ascending order in step loading do not alter
500 the ratcheting life in appreciable amount.
400
Variation of mean stress in descending order for step
loading is enlisted at ‘‘test 3’’ column in Table 3. Variation
True stress, MPa

300
of mean stress with time during fixed stress amplitude
200 cycling is shown in Fig. 143a and ratcheting strain evolu-
100 Amplitude Amplitude Amplitude tion with cycles is shown in Fig. 143b. After adding the life
300 MPa 360 MPa 420 MPa
0
fractions according to Eq. 9, it becomes 3.7. Similarly, in
Table 3 column ‘‘test 4’’, test conditions for descending
-100
order variation of stress amplitude with fixed mean stress is
-200 tabulated. Stress amplitude variation with time at constant
-300 mean stress and ratcheting strain evolution with cycles are
-400 shown in Fig. 144a, b, respectively. Total life fraction
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 calculated from Eq. 9 in decreasing amplitude step loading
True strain, % amounts to 1.15. As discussed in Fig. 1, two damaging
mechanisms are acting together in ratcheting and their
(b) 700
combined effect lead to early material failure. It can also be
600
told that only fatigue damage mechanism remains active
500
from second step onward for this decreasing mean and
400
amplitude step loading, as ratcheting strain accumulation
True stress, MPa

300 becomes ceased. Therefore, it is the expected cause of

200 enhancement of ratcheting life in decreasing step loading
Mean Mean Mean
100
60 MPa 120 MPa 180 MPa
ratcheting test.
0 Jiang and Sehitoglu [19, 20] showed that ratcheting
-100 strain direction could be changed by changing the mean
-200 stress direction in step loading. An experiment is conducted
-300 in such a way that stress amplitude remains constant
-400 throughout the test and mean stress adjusted alternatively
-500
between the values of ?60 MPa and -60 MPa. The cor-
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 responding waveform is schematically shown in stress-time
True strain, % coordinate in Fig. 16a. First cycle and saturated stress–
strain responses are depicted in Fig. 16b, c; Fig. 16d shows
Fig. 15 Step loading: stress versus strain plot: a constant mean stress
the ratcheting strain evolution with cycles. Amount of
of 120 MPa and stress amplitude varies in ascending order of 300,
360, and 420 MPa b constant stress amplitude of 420 MPa and mean ratcheting strain accumulated during stress cycling of
stress changes in ascending order of 60, 120, and 180 MPa ?60 MPa mean stress, is approximately recovered again in

123
 Author's personal copy
J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672 4671

(a) subsequent cycling with -60 MPa mean stress. Therefore,

due to continuous strain progression and recovery, Fig. 16c
shows a close loop and in Fig. 16d, a negligible accumu-
lation of ratcheting strain is noticed.

Conclusions

In this work, ratcheting response and the consequence of

previous loading history on it are investigated on 304LN
(b) 600
stainless steel at room temperature.
400 Ratcheting strain generally accumulates on the mean
stress direction in the absence of any previous deformation
True stress, MPa

200
history. Ratcheting strain accumulation increases with the
0 increase in mean stress and stress amplitude in both true
and engineering stress control test.
-200 Specimen cross sectional area alters with ratcheting strain
accumulation. As in engineering stress-controlled test, no
-400
correction in stress calculation is considered with change in
-600 cross-sectional area therefore, true mean stress and stress
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
amplitude increases uncontrollably with ratcheting strain
True strain, %
accumulation. When true maximum stress during engi-
(c) 600 neering stress cycling reaches to true ultimate tensile stress,
specimen failed by necking. Hence, true stress-controlled
400
ratcheting testing procedure is scientifically a correct
True stress, MPa

200 approach to evaluate material’s ratcheting property.

Mean-stress-dependent hardening, decrease in both
0 hysteresis loop area and plastic strain amplitude with
increasing mean stress, is observed in this material. In the
-200
presence of mean stress, true stress-controlled experiments
-400 show an increasing fatigue life. Mean stress-dependent
hardening is thought to be responsible for the improvement
-600 in ratcheting life.
0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
True strain, % True and engineering stress-controlled tests show sig-
nificant differences in ratcheting life. For engineering
(d) 3.0
stress-controlled progressive cycling test, presence of ten-
2.8
sile mean stress results in an abrupt increase of ratcheting
True ratcheting strain, %

2.6
strain and hence lower life than the true stress-controlled
2.4
tests, and vice versa for compressive mean stress. True
2.2
ratcheting strain changes linearly with representative back
2.0
stress.
1.8
In step loading, changes of mean stress or stress
1.6
amplitude in ascending order do not alter ratcheting life
1.4
and strain accumulation appreciably, whereas in descend-
1.2
ing order ratcheting strain accumulation is ceased and life
1.0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
enhanced. Constant amplitude stress cycling at alternative
Number of cycles tensile-compressive mean stress ceases overall ratcheting.

Fig. 16 Step loading: constant stress amplitude of 420 MPa and
mean stress changes alternatively between the value of 60 and
-60 MPa a schematic diagram of changing mean stress with time
b first cycle stress versus strain c saturated cycle stress versus strain
d accumulation of ratcheting strain with cycle
Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank The Director,
National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur, India for providing
all the necessary facilities in carrying out this study. Authors would
also like to acknowledge the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre,
Mumbai, India, for supplying the material.

123
 Author's personal copy
4672 J Mater Sci (2012) 47:4660–4672

References 19. Jiang Y, Sehitoglu H (1994) J Plasticity 10:579

20. Jiang Y, Sehitoglu H (1994) Int J Plasticity 10:849
1. Coffin LF (1964) J Basic Eng 86:673 21. Besson J, Guillemer-Neel C (2003) Mech Mater 35:1
2. Radhakrishnan VM (1975) Nucl Eng Design 34(3):379 22. Floreen S, Hayden HW (1970) Scripta Metall 4(2):87
3. Ide R, Yoshida F, Shiratori E (1978) Bull JSME 21(161):1576 23. Han KS, Margolin H (1989) Mater Sci Eng A 112:133
4. Pilo D, Reik W, Mayer P, Macherauch E (1979) Fatigue Eng 24. Xia Z, Kujawski D, Ellyin F (1996) Int J Fatigue 18(5):335
Mater Struct 1:281 25. JoDean M (1965) ASTM STP 378:45
5. Yoshida F (1989) Rate-dependent behavior of SUS304 Stainless 26. Christ HJ, Wamukwamba CK, Mughrabi H (1999) In: Wu XR,
steel under uniaxial creep-ratcheting and biaxial cyclic loading at Wang ZG (eds) Fatigue 99. Higher Education Press, Beijing,
room temperature. ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Confer- p 2165
ence, Honolulu, Hawii, pp 81–86 27. Kliman V, Bily M (1980) Mater Sci Eng 44:73
6. Yoshida F (1990) Int J Press Vessel Pip 44(2):207 28. Turner APL, Martin TJ (1980) Metall Trans A 11:475
7. Rugges MD, Krempl E (1990) J Mech Phys Solids 38:575 29. Lorenzo F, Laird C (1984) Mater Sci Eng 62:205
8. Paul SK, Sivaprasad S, Dhar S, Tarafder S (2011) Mater Sci Eng 30. Mughrabi H, Christ HJ (1997) ISIJ Int 37:1154
A 528(24):7341 31. Eckert R, Laird C, Bassani J (1987) Mater Sci Eng 91:81
9. Kang G, Gao Q, Yang X (2002) Mech Mater 34:145 32. Lukas P, Kunz L (1989) Int J Fatigue 11:55
10. Kang G, Kan Q, Zhang J, Sun Y (2006) Int J Plasticity 22(5):858 33. Glaser A, Eifler D, Macherauch E (1991) Matere Wiss Werkst
11. Taleb L, Hauet A (2009) Int J Plasticity 25(7):1359 Tech 22:266
12. Paul SK, Sivaprasad S, Dhar S, Tarafder S (2011) Mech Mater 34. Holste C, Kleinert W, Gurth R, Mecke K (1994) Mater Sci Eng A
43(11):705 187:113
13. Paul SK, Sivaprasad S, Dhar S, Tarafder S (2010) J Nucl Mater 35. Jiang Y, Zhang J (2008) Int J Plasticity 24(9):1481
401(1–3):17 36. Chaboche JL, Dang Van K, Cordier G (1979) Modelization of the
14. Hassan T, Kyriakides S (1992) J Plasticity 8:91 strain memory effect on the cyclic hardening of 316 stainless
15. Park SJ, Kim KS, Kim HS (2007) Fatigue Fract Eng Mater Struct steel. SMiRT’5, Div. L, Berlin, L 11/3
30(11):1076 37. Bari S, Hassan T (2000) Int J Plasticity 16:381
16. Kulkarni SC, Desai YM, Kant T, Reddy GR, Parulekar Y, Vaze 38. Paul SK, Sivaprasad S, Dhar S, Tarafder M, Tarafder S (2010)
KK (2003) Int J Press Vessel Pip 80: 179 Comp Mater Sci 48(3):662
17. Paul SK, Sivaprasad S, Dhar S, Tarafder S (2010) Int J Press 39. Zhang J, Jiang Y (2008) Int J Plasticity 24(10):1890
Vessel Pip 87:464 40. Miner MA (1945) J Appl Mech 67:A159
18. Paul SK, Sivaprasad S, Dhar S, Tarafder S (2010) Theor Appl
Fract Mech 54:63

123

View publication stats