Influence of temperature on a low-cycle fatigue behavior of a ferritic stainless steel

The main objective of this study is to reveal the effect of dynamic strain ageing (DSA) on a ferritic stainless steel with detail relation to monotonic and cyclic responses over a wide range of temperatures. For assessing the effect of strain rate on mechanical properties, tensile test results are studied at two different strain rates of 2×10−3/s and 2×10−4/s. Typical responses of this material are compared with other alloy in literatures that exhibits DSA. Serrations in monotonic stress-strain curves and anomalous dependence of tensile properties with temperatures are attributed to the DSA effect. The low cycle fatigue curves exhibit prominent hardening and negative temperature dependence of half-life plastic strain amplitude in temperatures between 300°C–500°C which can be explained by DSA phenomenon. The regime for dependence of marked cyclic hardening lies within the DSA regime of anomalous dependence of flow stress and dynamic strain hardening stress with temperature and negative strain rate sensitivity regime of monotonic response. It is believed that shortened fatigue life observed in the intermediate temperature is mainly due to the adverse effect of DSA. An empirical life prediction model is addressed for as-received material to consider the effect of temperature on fatigue life. The numbers of load reversals obtained from experiment and predicted from fatigue parameter are compared and found to be in good agreement.