Experimental Determination of the Ratcheting of the Porosity for the Study of Ductile Rupture Under Cyclic Loading Conditions

It is known that for ductile porous materials, cyclic loadings lead to lower fracture strains than monotone ones. This reduction of ductility probably arises from an effect called “ratcheting of the porosity” that consists of a continued increase of the mean porosity during each cycle with the number of cycles. Finite element based micromechanical simulations confirmed this interpretation. Recently the authors proposed a Gurson-type “layer model” better fit that Gurson’s original one which does not predict the ratcheting of the porosity, for the description of the ductile behavior under cyclic loading conditions. A very good agreement was obtained between the results of the micromechanical simulations and the model predictions for a rigid-hardenable material. Yet, the ratcheting of the porosity is a consequence of both hardening and elasticity; and the theory of sequential limit analysis used in order to get the “layer model” is strictly applicable in the absence of elasticity. Based on an expression of the porosity rate accounting for elasticity, a proposal was made to improve the new model with regard to elasticity. Simultaneously to this theoretical work, an experimental program was conducted on a model material in order to assess experimentally this new model. The material is a HIPed 316L stainless steel, with Al2O3 almost spherical inclusions acting like porosities, complying with the hypothesis made to derive the theoretical model. Notched tensile specimens, with a center section of 4mm, were cyclically loaded. Several tomographies were performed at ESRF, using a 120 keV beamline and 3x3 microns detector, in order to prove experimentally the ratcheting effect of the porosity. The void growth through the cycles is precisely described and the experimental results could then be processed and compared to the numerical porosities predictions of the model. This paper presents the experimental activity of this PhD program.