Cyclic creep of type 304 stainless steel during unbalanced tension-compression loading at elevated temperature

Samples of Type 304 stainless steel were subjected to cyclic stresses with a positive mean stress at 300 and 560°C. Very rapid net elongation was observed whenever the stress limits were such as to produce a plastic strain amplitude of the same order of magnitude as the elastic strain at the peak stress. The maximum mean strain-rate, or cyclic creep rate, for a given peak tensile stress was achieved when the mean stress was just slightly above zero. Increasing the mean stress caused the mean strain rate to de-crease. The sensitive dependence of the mean strain-rate on the plastic strain ampli-tude and inverse dependence on the mean stress indicates that remobilization of disloca-tions by the reverse strain is an important mechanism for cyclic-creep acceleration. Although rapid cyclic creep was observed at both temperatures, a measurable mean strain rate was found for a much narrower range of stress conditions at 560 than at 300°C. The strain accumulated during cyclic creep did not produce any strain hardening, but did influence the shape of the stress-strain curve in a subsequent tensile test.