This paper deals with the development of a cyclic plasticity model suitable for predicting the strain range-dependent behavior of austenitic steels. The proposed cyclic plasticity model uses the virtual back-stress variable corresponding to a cyclically-stable material under strain control. This new internal variable is defined by means of a memory surface introduced in the stress space. The linear isotropic hardening rule is also superposed. First, the proposed model was validated on experimental data published for the SS304 material (Kang et al., Constitutive modeling of strain range dependent cyclic hardening. Int J Plast 19 (2003) 1801–1819). Subsequently, the proposed cyclic plasticity model was applied to our own experimental data from uniaxial tests realized on 08Ch18N10T at room temperature. The new cyclic plasticity model can be calibrated by the relatively simple fitting procedure that is described in the paper. A comparison between the results of a numerical simulation and the results of real experiments demonstrates the robustness of the proposed approach.

This paper describes and presents an experimental program of low-cycle fatigue tests of austenitic stainless steel 08Ch18N10T at room temperature. The low-cycle tests include uniaxial and torsional tests for various specimen geometries and for a vast range of strain amplitude. The experimental data was used to validate the proposed cyclic plasticity model for predicting the strain-range dependent behavior of austenitic steels. The proposed model uses a virtual back-stress variable corresponding to a cyclically stable material under strain control. This internal variable is defined by means of a memory surface introduced in the stress space. The linear isotropic hardening rule is also superposed. A modification is presented that enables the cyclic hardening response of 08Ch18N10T to be simulated correctly under torsional loading conditions. A comparison is made between the real experimental results and the numerical simulation results, demonstrating the robustness of the proposed cyclic plasticity model.