Neutron Diffraction Study of Fatigue Behaviors in 316LN Stainless Steel

Abstract

Time-of-flight neutron diffraction has been used to investigate deformation behaviors due to cyclic loading. A study of 316LN stainless steel shows that in the early stage of fatigue life, grain-orientation dependent intergranular stresses develop quickly and oscillate between two extreme states corresponding to the ends of a tensile or compressive half loading cycle. In the late stage, the intergranular strains vanish for tests ending in tension and remain relatively unchanged for tests ending in compression, which points to the difference in plastic behaviors during tensile and compressive loadings.