Influence of elastic and plastic anisotropy on the flow behavior in a duplex stainless steel

The load partitioning between two phases in a cold-rolled duplex stainless steel has been experimentally studied in situ by X-ray diffraction, for different loading directions. It was found that the load partitioning between the two phases is dependent on the loading direction. For loading in the rolling direction, both phases deform plastically to the same degree, while more plastic deformation occurs in the austenitic phase during loading in the transverse direction. For loading in the 45-deg direction, more plastic deformation occurs in the ferritic phase. The strong crystallographic texture in the ferritic phase makes the material anisotropic, with a higher stiffness and yield strength in the transverse direction compared to the rolling direction. The measured texture was used as input to theoretical predictions of both elastic and plastic anisotropy. The plastic anisotropy was predicted by assuming intragranular slip as the main deformation mechanism. The predicted anisotropic material properties were then used in finite-element simulations to study the flow behavior of the material in different directions. The predicted flow behavior was found to be in good agreement with the experimentally observed load partitioning between the phases for loading in the rolling and transverse directions. However, the yield strength of the ferritic phase during loading in the 45-deg direction was found to be lower than what was predicted. The reason for this is the difference in slip characteristics in different sample directions, because of the morphological texture.