Experimental Verification of Constitutive Equations for Creep and Plasticity Based on Overlay Models

A general description of creep and plastic deformation based on overlay models is presented. This includes the description of time effects during plastic deformation at room temperature. A detailed procedure to obtain the model parameters is also discussed. The description has been evaluated for a large number of uniaxial and biaxial load histories on thin walled tubes. The materials involved are a 2 1/4 Cr-1 Mo steel stabilized with Niobium (WN 1.6770) and a 304 stainless steel (WN 1.4948). The theoretical predictions of the plastic deformations are found to be sufficiently accurate. The evaluation of the phenomenological description for creep shows a fairly good agreement with the real creep deformation process. Special attention requires the description of softening due to microstructural changes.