Stress–strain curve estimation procedures for stainless steels based on yield and ultimate strengths

•Stress–strain curve estimation procedures were proposed for stainless steels.•The estimation requires only the yield and ultimate strengths.•The estimation accuracy was confirmed by test results and failure assessments.

Three procedures for estimating true stress–strain curves of stainless steels were proposed. Only the yield and ultimate strengths are required for the estimation. In order to show the validity of the proposed procedures, four heats of stainless steels were subjected to tensile tests up to 300 °C. The true stress–strain curves obtained were fitted well by the Swift-type equation. Based on the test results, accuracy of the estimation procedures was quantified. It was shown that J-integral values obtained using the estimated curves could derive accurate fracture strengths of a cracked pipe.