Modeling of Plastic Strain-Induced Martensitic Transformation for Cryogenic Applications

Abstract

A simplified model of martensitic transformation in stainless steels at cryogenic temperatures is proposed. The constitutive modeling of plastic flow under cryogenic conditions is based on the assumption of small strains (⩽0.2). The hardening law for the biphase material (α′ martensite platelets embedded in the γ austenite matrix) has been obtained from the Mori-Tanaka homogenization. A mixed hardening with combined isotropic and kinematic contributions is proposed. The constitutive model, containing a reasonable number of parameters, has been numerically implemented and checked with respect to experimental data. Finally, the model is applied to compute the martensite evolution in thin-walled corrugated shells designed for cryogenic temperatures (mechanical compensation system of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN).