Fatigue life estimation in presence of ratcheting phenomenon for AISI 304LN stainless steel tested under uniaxial cyclic loading

This investigation aims to describe the experimental ratcheting life of AISI 304LN stainless steel with a proposed model. A series of stress-controlled low cycle fatigue experiments have been carried out at room temperature under uniaxial loading on the steel up to failure of specimens, under three sets of stress amplitude and mean stress values. Comparison of the theoretically predicted results with the experimental ones is found to be reasonably satisfactory in the fatigue life range of 10(2)-10(5) cycles. Additionally the proposed stress-based model for predicting ratcheting fatigue life has been critically discussed with reference to some previous models.