Investigations into the ratchetting behaviour of austenitic pipes

In technical components subjected to cyclic loading, inelastic deformations cannot be excluded. In such cases, under certain conditions, small amounts of non-reversed plastic strain per cycle can accumulate to large strains, an effect commonly called ratchetting. The proof of ratchetting in complex structures is often possible by numerical methods only, e.g. the finite-element method. Describing cyclic plasticity and predicting ratchetting necessitate a suitable constitutive law. This paper describes the investigation of the ratchetting behaviour of thin-walled tubes under cyclic loading. Tests were performed and accompanied by finite-element computations using a non-linear kinematic hardening rule with superposed isotropic cyclic hardening. The constitutive law applied used a set of 13 material parameters. This paper discusses the requirements for uniaxial tests which meet the determination of a suitable set of parameters for describing ratchetting. To describe different kinds of isotropic hardening, an extension of the isotropic hardening rule is proposed. Under uniaxial conditions, continuous cyclic hardening is well reproduced with this extension.