Anisotropic Constitutive Model of Strain-induced Phenomena in Stainless Steels at Cryogenic Temperatures

A majority of the thin-walled components subjected to intensive plastic straining at cryogenic temperatures are made of stainless steels. The examples of such components can be found in the interconnections of particle accelerators, containing the superconducting magnets, where the thermal contraction is absorbed by thin-walled, axisymetric shells called bellows expansion joints. The stainless steels show three main phenomena induced by plastic strains at cryogenic temperatures: serrated (discontinuous) yielding, gamma->alpha' phase transformation and anisotropic ductile damage. In the present paper, a coupled constitutive model of gamma->alpha' phase transformation and orthotropic ductile damage is presented. A kinetic law of phase transformation, and a kinetic law of evolution of orthotropic damage are presented. The model is extended to anisotropic plasticity comprising a constant anisotropy (texture effect), which can be classically taken into account by the Hill yield surface, and plastic strain induced anisotropy. For such a model the shape of the yield surface in the stress space varies as a function of the plastic strains. The constitutive model creates a bridge between material science (experiments) and structural analysis. It has been used to predict the response of beam vacuum and cryogenic bellows to monotonic and cyclic loads developed in the interconnections of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.