A viscoplastic constitutive model for nickel-base superalloy, part 2: modeling under anisothermal conditions

Abstract In Part 2 of this study, extensive deformation tests were carried out on the nickel-base polycrystalline superalloy IN738LC under isothermal and anisothermal conditions between 450 and 950 °C. Under the isothermal conditions, the material showed almost no rate/time-dependency below 700 °C, while it showed distinct rate/time-dependency above 800 °C. Regarding the cyclic deformation, slight cyclic hardening behavior was observed when the temperature was below 700 °C and the imposed strain rate was fast, whereas in the case of the temperature above 800 °C or under slower strain rate conditions, the cyclic hardening behavior was scarcely observed. Unique inelastic behavior was observed under in-phase and out-of-phase anisothermal conditions: with an increase in the number of cycles, the stress at higher temperatures became smaller and the stress at lower temperatures became larger in absolute value although the stress range was approximately constant during the cyclic loading. In other words, the mean stress continues to evolve cycle-by-cycle in the direction of the stress at lower temperatures. Based on the experimental results, it was assumed that evolution of the variable Y that had been incorporated into a kinematic hardening rule in Part 1 of this study is active under higher temperatures and is negligible under lower temperatures. The material constants used in the constitutive equations were determined with the isothermal data, and were expressed as functions of temperature empirically. The extended viscoplastic constitutive equations were applied to the anisothermal cyclic loading as well as the monotonic tension, stress relaxation, creep and cyclic loading under the isothermal conditions. It was demonstrated that the present viscoplastic constitutive model was successful in describing the inelastic behavior of the material adequately, including the anomalous inelastic behavior observed under the anisothermal conditions, owing to the consideration of the variable Y .