Unified Tensile Work Hardening Behaviour of Thin Section Plate and Forged Thick Section 9Cr-1Mo Ferritic Steel
AbstractDetailed investigation has been performed on tensile work hardening behaviour in terms of the variations of instantaneous work hardening rate (θ = dσ/dεp, where σ is true stress and εp is true plastic strain) with stress and true plastic strain rate (ε̇p) for temperature range 300–873 K in two different material conditions, (i) normalised and tempered plate and (ii) quenched and tempered tubeplate forging of 9Cr-1Mo ferritic steel. Both plate and tubeplate forging exhibited two-stage work hardening and three different temperature regimes in the variation of θ with σ. The variations of θ with respect to ε̇p exhibited unified work hardening in terms of a single master curve independent of temperature and initial microstructure. θ varied linearly with reciprocal of plastic strain rate, i.e. 1/ε̇p, and as a consequence, linear correlation between the rate of change of true stress and true plastic strain rate independent of temperature and microstructure has been obtained.