High temperature viscoplastic ratchetting: Material response or modeling artifact

Ratchetting, the net accumulation of strain over a loading cycle, is a deformation mechanism that leads to distortions in shape, often resulting in a loss of function that culminates in structural failure. Viscoplastic ratchetting is prevalent at high homologous temperatures where viscous characteristics are prominent in material response. This deformation mechanism is accentuated by the presence of a mean stress; a consequence of interaction between thermal gradients and structural constraints. Favorable conditions for viscoplastic ratchetting exist in the Stirling engines being developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) for space and terrestrial power applications. To assess the potential for ratchetting and its effect on durability of high temperature structures requires a viscoplastic analysis of the design. But ratchetting is a very difficult phenomenon to accurately model. One must therefore ask whether the results from such an analysis are indicative of actual material behavior, or if they are artifacts of the theory being used in the analysis. There are several subtle aspects in a viscoplastic model that must be dealt with in order to accurately model ratchetting behavior, and therefore obtain meaningful predictions from it. In this paper, some of these subtlties and the necessary ratchet experiments needed to obtain an accurate viscoplastic representation of a material are discussed