Effect on Flow Stress of a Rapid Phase Transition in AISI 1045 Steel
New experimental data on AISI 1045 steel from the NIST pulse-heated Kolsky Bar Laboratory are presented. The material is shown to exhibit a nonequilibrium phase transformation at high strain rate. An interesting feature of these data is that the material has a stiffer response to compressive loading when it has been preheated to a testing temperature that is below the eutectoid temperature using pulse-heating than it does when it has been preheated using a slower heating method. On the other hand, when the material has been pulse-heated to a temperature that exceeds the eutectoid temperature prior to compressive loading on the Kolsky bar, it is shown to exhibit a significant loss of strength. A consequence of this behavior is that fixed-parameter constitutive models, such as the well-known Johnson-Cook model, cannot be used to describe this constitutive response behavior. An argument is made that the phase transition does not occur during high-speed machining operations, and suggestions are made as to how to modify the Johnson-Cook model of Jaspers and Dauzenberg for this material in order to obtain improved temperature predictions in finite-element simulations of high-speed machining processes.