Ratchetting: Recent progresses in phenomenon observation, constitutive modeling and application

Ratchetting is a kind of special cyclic deformation behavior of the materials and structures subjected to a cyclic stressing with non-zero mean stress, and should be emphasized in the safety assessment and life estimation of engineering structures. In the last two decades, the ratchetting had been extensively studied by experiments and simulations. In this paper, the recent progresses in phenomenon observation and constitutive modeling for the ratchetting behavior of metals, polymers and composites are reviewed first. The finite element implementation and engineering application of the developed models in recent years and other corresponding topics are also commented. Some suggestions for further studies are proposed as a conclusion of the review. It should be noted that the referred literature here is mainly published after 1997.