Different levels of plastic strain incompatibility during cyclic loading: in terms of dislocation density and distribution

The origin of the cyclic hardening in polycrystalline AISI 316L stainless s teel at 0.2T(m) is studied in terms of effective and back stresses. The evo lution of these hardening components is discussed with the help of dislocat ion features. More precisely, a back stress partition into intragranular an d intergranular long-range interactions is proposed by using the macroscopi c back stress measurement and a composite modelling taking into account het erogeneous dislocation structures. Moreover, the influence of stress axis d irection on the developed heterogeneous dislocation structures is highlight ed. Finally, the influence of stacking fault energy (SFE) on edge dipole si ze is also discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.