This study examines the low‐cycle fatigue behaviours of twinning induced plasticity (TWIP) steel, 316 and 304 stainless steels under symmetric strain cycling. All three alloys are austenitic steels with comparable tensile elongation but exhibit notable differences in tensile stress and work hardening characteristics. These differences were a key reason for selecting these specific steels. Each alloy exhibits distinct cyclic hardening (CH) responses. TWIP steel consistently hardens with increased stress amplitudes and shows enhanced hardening at higher strain levels, supported by planar dislocation substructures and mechanical twins. Conversely, SS316 hardens at higher strain amplitudes but exhibits a trend towards cyclic softening at lower strain amplitudes, with the formation of martensite enhancing its strength. SS304 exhibits the most pronounced CH, characterised by significant increases in stress amplitude and a variable cyclic modulus of elasticity, driven by martensite formation and higher dislocation density. The study evaluates hardening models for simulating cyclic behaviour. For TWIP and SS316, a combined hardening model accurately predicts cyclic responses by adjusting cyclic yield stress in the isotropic hardening model while keeping kinematic hardening parameters constant. However, this model is less effective for SS304. A refined model, which adjusts both cyclic yield stress and cyclic elastic modulus along with kinematic hardening exponents while keeping kinematic hardening coefficients constant, significantly improves predictive accuracy for SS304.
Surajit Kumar Paul (Sun,) studied this question.