The effect of low cycle fatigue, ratcheting and mean stress relaxation on stress–strain response and microstructural development in a dual phase steel

• Grain orientation has only a small effect on the substructral development.
• Ratcheting specimen showed larger in-grain misorientation compared to LCF and MSR.
• Local misorientation of substructures have strong relation with accumulated strain.
• Strain localization in ferrite phase was observed at ferrite-martensite interface.

This study examines the cyclic plastic deformation behavior and microstructural development of a dual phase steel in both symmetric and asymmetric cycling in strain and stress control modes. The low-cycle fatigue (LCF) and mean stress relaxation (MSR) tests show very similar fatigue lifetimes. However, fatigue lifetimes reduce and prominent accumulation of directional strain was observed in ratcheting. A microstructural analysis has revealed that the type of cyclic test carried out has a noticeable impact on the substructural development, and this has been correlated with differences in accumulated tensile strain. Electron backscatter diffraction investigation has shown larger in-grain misorientation for ratcheting specimen in comparison with LCF and MSR specimens. The orientation of ferrite grains was found to have very little effect on their substructural development, and strain localization commonly occurred in the ferrite at the ferrite/martensite interface.