Different levels of plastic strain incompatibility during cyclic loading: in terms of dislocation density and distribution

The origin of the cyclic hardening in polycrystalline AISI 316L stainless steel at 0.2Tm is studied in terms of effective and back stresses. The evolution of these hardening components is discussed with the help of dislocation features. More precisely, a back stress partition into intragranular and intergranular long-range interactions is proposed by using the macroscopic back stress measurement and a composite modelling taking into account heterogeneous dislocation structures. Moreover, the influence of stress axis direction on the developed heterogeneous dislocation structures is highlighted. Finally, the influence of stacking fault energy (SFE) on edge dipole size is also discussed.