EFFECTIVE STRESSES AND MICROSTRUCTURE IN CYCLICALLY DEFORMED 316L AUSTENITIC STAINLESS-STEEL - EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE AND NITROGEN-CONTENT

This paper reports a study on the factors influencing dislocation slip during cyclic deformation of 316L austenitic stainless steel. TEM inv estigations show that low temperature and interstitial nitrogen conten t favour planar slip and lead to higher effective stress values. Measu rements of effective and internal stresses with the Handfield-Dickson technique indicate that the contribution of nitrogen in the effective component is more important than that of temperature. It is deduced th at nitrogen acts through a pinning effect, while low temperature exert s an effect on friction stress. The results also suggest that cyclic p lasticity could modify the short range order leading to a redistributi on of nitrogen.