Crystal plasticity model calibration for 316l stainless steel single crystals during deformation

Abstract

Type 316L austenitic stainless steel is an important structural material used for the in-core components and pressure boundaries of light water reactors. In order to study degradation mechanisms in such a steel, like crack initiation and propagation, it is crucial to develop reliable crystal plasticity models at microscale that would account for anisotropic nature of the material and realistic modelling of grain topology. In this work we present a procedure for calibrating material properties of a slip-based crystal plasticity finite element model and investigate its suitability as a constitutive model for single-crystal tensile test simulations. The material properties include the anisotropic elastic and crystal plasticity material parameters that are calibrated against experimental tensile test curves for 316L stainless steel single crystals at selected crystallographic orientations. For the crystal plasticity material parameters a systematic sensitivity study using Bassani and Wu hardening law is performed