Effect of Mean Stress and Solution Annealing Temperature on Ratcheting Behaviour of AISI 304 Stainless Steel

The present investigation has been carried out to understand the effect of mean stress on room temperature ratcheting behaviour of solution annealed AISI 304 stainless steel at constant stress amplitude. It is found that the ratcheting strain to failure linearly increases with increase of mean stress and there is no significant difference in the accumulated ratcheting strain with change in solution annealing temperature vis-a-vis grain size. While the number of cycles to complete failure increases exponentially with mean stress irrespective of solution annealing temperature, the ratcheting life is found to increase when soltionin annealing is done at lower temperature. This variation is believed to be associated with the tensile yield strength of the specimens solutionised at two different temperatures.