Strain aging and load relaxation behavior of type 316 stainless steel at room temperature

The strain aging and load relaxation behavior of type 316 stainless steel (SS) at room temperature were studied. It is shown that rapid aging occurs in 316 SS at room temperature to an extent that affects the load relaxation behavior of the material. Qualitatively, the aging behavior was found to agree with those reported earlier for Fe-Ni-C-alloys, and the observed aging characteristics could be explained by using an earlier proposed vacancy-interstitial mechanism. The load relaxation behavior is analyzed in terms of Hart’s state variable model. Effects of strain aging and strain hardening on the load relaxation behavior and the scaling of the relaxation curves are determined. It is shown that aging can be accounted for by a time-dependent change in a model parameter, which is dependent on the mobile dislocation density and the dislocation mobility. In addition, a dependency on plastic state of the same parameter previously held constant was found. It is concluded that this phenomenon, which in 316 SS could be rationalized in terms of increasing forest dislocation density, is likely to be more general, and a provision for it should be made in the state variable theory