Phase-Specific Strain Hardening and Load Partitioning of Cold Rolled Duplex Stainless Steel X2CrNiN23-4

Multi-phase materials often times consist of constituents with high contrasts in phase-specific mechanical properties. Here, even after homogeneous plastic deformation phase-specific residual stresses develop that may affect the components behaviour in service. For numerical simulation of phase-specific residual stresses, knowledge of the particular phase-specific strain hardening behaviour is essential. In this study, the strain hardening of ferrite and austenite in cold rolled duplex stainless steel of type X2CrNiN23-4 is investigated. By means of X-ray diffraction, the phase-specific load partitioning and residual stress evolution are analysed for uniaxial load application in three directions within the sheets plane, taking into account the sheet metals phase specific anisotropy. In order to assess the necessity for experimental determination of anisotropic phase specific behaviour, the strain hardening parameters, derived from only one loading direction, are implemented in a mean-field approach for prediction of phase-specific stresses. A simplified simulation approach is applied that only considers macroscopic plastic anisotropy and results are compared to experimental findings. For all investigated loading directions, it was observed that austenite is the high-strength phase. This load partitioning behaviour was confirmed by the evolution of phase-specific residual stresses as a result of uniaxial elasto-plastic loading. With the simplified and fast numerical approach, satisfying results for prediction of anisotropic phase-specific (residual) stresses are obtained.