Deformation path effects on the internal stress development in cold worked austenitic steel deformed in tension

The effects of cold work level and strain paths on the flow stress of austenitic stainless steels, including Bauschinger effect and associated internal stresses were investigated with both mechanical testing and neutron diffraction techniques. The main objective was to assess the effects of cold rolling: to 5%, 10%, 20% and 40% reduction and uniaxial straining on the evolution of the internal strains during the re-straining to 5% tensile strain in-situ, which is relevant for stress corrosion cracking (SCC) studies. The results of mechanical testing showed that the yield strength of material increased when it was reloaded in the forward direction and decreased well below the flow stress when the loading direction was reversed, showing a strong Bauschinger effect. The magnitude of Bauschinger effect is independent on whether tensile or compressive prestraining comes first but rather on the amount of prestrain. The assessment of the effect of prestraining methods showed that the magnitude of yield asymmetry was higher in the material prestrained by uniaxial deformation than those prestrained by cold rolling. Neutron diffraction test results showed that the elastic lattice strain difference between the maximum and minimum strain values increased consistently with the applied stress during the re-straining to 5% tensile strain in-situ along the 3 orthogonal directions of the rolled plate. It also emerged that, following the in-situ loading of cold rolled materials to 5% tensile strain, the largest strain difference occurred in the material prestrained to 20% reduction. In cold rolled samples, the peak width increased with cold work levels and during re-straining to 5% along rolling, transverse to rolling and normal directions which simulated reversed condition. In contrast to the cold rolled samples, there was neither increase nor decrease in the peak width of samples prestrained by uniaxial deformation on re-straining in reverse direction. This was rationalised in terms of the development of intragranular and intergranular stresses in the two cases and implications to SCC susceptibility were discussed.