JMEPEG ASM International

DOI: 10.1007/s11665-014-1081-x 1059-9495/$19.00

Tensile Behavior of T91 Steel Over a Wide Range

of Temperatures and Strain-Rate Up To 104 s1
M. Scapin, L. Peroni, C. Fichera, and A. Cambriani

(Submitted February 7, 2014; in revised form April 2, 2014)

High chromium ferritic/martensitic steel T91 (9% Cr, 1% Mo), on account of its radiation resistance, is a
candidate material for nuclear reactor applications. Its joining by an impact method to create a cold joint is
tested in the realm of scoping tests toward the safe operation of nuclear fuels, encapsulated in representative
T91 materials. Hitherto, T91 mechanical characterization at high strain rates is relatively unknown, par-
ticularly, in relation to impact joining and also to nuclear accidents. In this study, the mechanical char-
acterization of T91 steel was performed in tension by varying the strain-rate (1023 up to 104 s21) and
temperature (20-800°C) on dog-bone specimens, using standard testing machines or Hopkinson Bar ap-
parati. As expected, the material is both temperature and strain-rate sensitive and different sets of
parameters for the Johnson-Cook strength model were extracted via a numerical inverse procedure, in
order to obtain the most suitable set to be used in this field of applications.

T91 shows superior radiation damage and swelling tolerance

Keywords high strain-rate, high temperature, Hopkinson Bar,
inverse method, Johnson-Cook, nuclear applications,
solid-state welding, T91 steel
1. Introduction
The investigation of the materials behavior at high strain-
rates is an important aspect in different design engineering
problems. In this sense, many studies were performed in the
automotive field for crashworthiness applications and aviation
industries (see e.g., Ref 1-4). The knowledge of the material
behavior at high strain-rates and even at high temperatures is
strongly related to design and safety analysis also in nuclear
fields, as, e.g., reported in Ref 5-11. Aim of this work is the
investigation of the tensile behavior of high chromium ferritic/
martensitic steel T91 (9% Cr, 1% Mo), which, among the
alternative materials for cladding, is currently being considered
for operating conditions beyond current nuclear industry
experience. The role of the cladding is key to the safe operation
of nuclear reactors. AIM1 austenitic steels have been favored
until now, but other alternatives [ferritic/martensitic or oxide
dispersion strengthened (ODS) steels] are considered as they
exhibit better resistance to neutron damage. Although the JRC-
ITUÕs programmes focus largely on fuel safety, it was
recognized that experimental safety performance tests in the
future will need to be performed with representative cladding
materials, necessitating an investigation of suitable welding
technologies.
M. Scapin, L. Peroni, and C. Fichera Department of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli
Abruzzi, 24, 10129 Torino, Italy; and A. Cambriani, European
Commission, Directorate General Joint Research Centre, Institute for
Transuranium Elements (JRC-ITU), P.O. Box 2340, 76125 Karlsruhe,
Germany. Contact e-mail: martina.scapin@polito.it.
as well as good resistance to high temperature creep and
corrosion (Ref 12). Today T91 is mainly used in conventional
fossil fuel power plants components such as boiler super
heaters and re-heaters tubes or furnace tubes for petrochemical
units where resistance to high temperature creep is required.
A key issue for the technological application envisaged for
T91 in the nuclear field is its joining and welding techniques. In
fact, joining of T91 with conventional fusion welding processes
such as TIG or laser welding requires the application of a Post
Welding Heat Treatment (PWHT) to retrieve its original
characteristics and to obtain strong and ductile joints. To avoid
PWHT, non-conventional solid-state joining techniques such as
explosive welding, Electro Magnetic Pulse Technology
(EMPT), friction stir welding, and diffusion bonding have
been investigated in the framework of the 7th Euratom
Framework Program research collaborative project ‘‘Genera-
tion IV and Transmutation Materials’’ (GETMAT) (Ref 13). In
particular, explosive welding and EMPT processes create a
metallurgical bond by means of a high velocity impact between
two metal parts that, depending on the process and on the
relevant setup, are deformed and accelerated by electromag-
netic forces or explosive energy (Ref 14, 15). The JRC-ITU is
pursuing a cold welding route, based on EMPT. In the EMPT
process, the plastic deformation, acceleration, and subsequent
impact occur in a time frame of tenths of a microsecond,
involving deformations that result in strain-rates close to the
103-104 s1 range. Similar orders of magnitudes are encoun-
tered in explosive welding. In order to optimize the process
parameters, numerical modeling is extensively used in both
techniques by means of research and commercially available
numerical simulation packages. The implementation of the
correct material strength model into the numerical codes,
accounting for material behavior at high strain rates, is therefore
of paramount importance for the reliability of the model.
Today, knowledge about the behavior of T91 material at
high strain rates is scarce if existent at all. To this aim,
mechanical characterization of T91 at high strain rates and

Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance

derivation of a reliable material strength model are a necessary
step to allow the application of valid numerical models for
parameter optimization of joining processes such as EMPT and
explosive welding.
T91 mechanical characterization at high strain rates could
also bring valuable support to safety analysis for the future
reactor systems, especially when transient and accident reactor
conditions are evaluated. Rapid transients and severe accidents
for a nuclear reactors using T91 as fuel cladding or in-core
structural material could result in dynamic loading of the
structure within a timescale of few milliseconds, with a
consequent abrupt release of mechanical energy to the reactor
vessel, in-core piping, and components (Ref 16). The evolution
and consequences of such accidents involving rapid transients
are generally assessed by dedicated numerical codes which
must account for the response of the core structural material to
the relevant loading conditions. Therefore, knowledge about
T91Õs response to rapid loading is necessary to update the
computer code material properties database for conducting
safety analysis evaluations.
The experimental determination of the relationship between
stress and strain for a material necessitates a test campaign in
which different loading conditions are investigated. The final
goal is the identification of work hardening, strain-rate
sensitivity, and thermal softening parameters to correctly
reproduce the experimental material response with a specific
material model. If the material model is empirical, the model
parameters are usually obtained by fitting the experimental data
analytically. With this standard approach, the quality of the
results could be affected by geometrical effects that lead to non-
uniform stress-strain field within the specimen, and thermo-
mechanical coupling in case of high strain-rates, when the
thermal softening effects become more relevant. In contrast, a
numerical inverse method is more useful to extract material
strength parameters from experimental results in all the cases in
which the stress and strain fields are not correctly described or
predictable with an analytical model. The use of a numerical
inverse method for the identification of material parameters is
now widespread thanks to the large computing power available
at lower cost. In recent years, different authors applied a
combined numerical and experimental technique to extract the
material model parameters, usually implemented in commercial
FE codes, starting from compressive or tensile results, obtained
under different loading conditions. The Johnson-Cook (J-C)
(Ref 17) model is one of the most used, and the literature
includes many studies, in which original or modified formu-
lations are used. One of the most important works on this topic
is by Zhao (Ref 18), in which a modified formulation of the J-C
model is used to fit the experimental data varying the strain-
rate. Other examples exist (Ref 8, 19-23), in which a combined
numerical and experimental technique was adopted to obtain
the parameters of J-C-like models in terms of hardening, strain-
rate, and thermal sensitivity starting from standard compression
or tension tests performed at different strain-rates and/or
temperatures.
Table 1 Nominal composition of commercial T91 steel (wt.%)
C Mn P S Si
Min 0.08 0.30 0.20
Max 0.12 0.60 0.020 0.010 0.50
In this work, the mechanical characterization of T91 steel
was performed under static and dynamic loading conditions at
different temperatures. The experimental tests were performed
in tensile loading conditions on small dog-bone specimens,
machined from bar-formed samples. A series of tests at room
temperature were performed at different strain-rates in order to
obtain information on the strain-rate sensitivity of the material.
The nominal strain-rates of the tests were 103, 101, 101, 103,
and 104 s1. In addition, a series of tests at different
temperatures in static loading conditions were performed to
gain information on the thermal softening of the material. The
nominal temperatures of the tests were 20, 200, 400, 600, and
800C. The specimen was heated using an induction coil
system especially designed to concentrate the heat flux in the
gage length. The specimen temperature was monitored using
thermocouples directly welded on the specimen surface.
Finally, the experimental data were used in an optimization
procedure based on a numerical inverse method (presented in
detail in section 5) to extract the material model parameter of
the J-C model. The numerical simulations were performed in
LS-DYNA (Ref 24) and the optimization was managed by the
software LS-OPT (Ref 25).
2. Material and Applications
The nominal composition of commercial T91 steel accord-
ing to ASTM standards is shown in Table 1, and the T91 quasi-
static mechanical properties at room temperature are summa-
rized in Table 2.
Heat treatment conditions in the production of T91 include
normalization at 1040C, cooling in air and tempering at 730C
for 1 h to allow homogenous carbide precipitation within the
martensitic structure. It is the carbide precipitation that provides
improved creep rupture strength. The typical microstructure of
these materials is that of tempered martensite (Ref 12).
A metallographic section of the T91 material used for the
tests is showed in Fig. 1. The line across the picture is the solid-
state joint obtained with the EMPT process.
The superior mechanical properties of T91 rely on the
creation and maintenance throughout its service life of a
tempered martensitic microstructure. Conventional fusion
welding processes destroy this condition and require an
appropriate PWHT to recreate the microstructure.
Table 2 T91 mechanical properties at room temperature
Yield Tensile Minimum Maximum
strength, strength, longitudinal hardness
MPa MPa elongation, % HB
Minimum 415 Minimum 585 20 250
Cr Mo V Nb N Al Ni
8.00 0.85 0.18 0.06 0.030
9.50 1.05 0.25 0.10 0.070 0.040 0.40
Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance
Fig. 1 Tempered martensite microstructure of a T91 specimen (a); sketch of the specimens used for tests at different temperatures and strain-
rate up to 103 s1 and the miniaturized specimens used for high strain-rate tests at 104 s1 (b)
Fig. 2 Schematic of a typical EMPT setup for T91 fuel pin closing
Among the cold joining processes available, impact joining
such as EMPT appears particularly suitable for the envisaged
applications of T91 in the nuclear field. In this regard, JRC-ITU
is exploring the feasibility of EMPT applied to joining of T91
nuclear fuel cladding. In depth knowledge of T91 response to
impact loading is therefore a basic requirement for the
understanding and the optimization of EMPT joining activities
carried on at JRC-ITU. In this step, a specially formed conical
end plug is inserted in the fuel pin, and the wall of the cladding
is accelerated in the high electromagnetic field onto the conical
plug to create a weld. The time-dependent EM field and the
associated Lorentz forces are created by discharging a bank of
capacitor through a coil. The schematic of a typical EMPT
setup is showed in Fig. 2.
3. Experimental Setup
The experimental test campaign was performed on dog-bone
specimens with a gage diameter of 3 mm and a gage length of
5 mm, as reported in Fig. 1. In general, for Hopkinson Bar
tests, there are no specific standards, as well as no specifications
Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance
on the specimen dimension are available, but the chosen
geometry has also been used by other researchers, e.g.,
(Ref 5, 26-28). A single specimen geometry was used for all
the tests, to avoid the influence of geometry and dimension and
to have the possibility to directly compare the results coming
from different loading conditions.
A second set of 5 samples (see Fig. 1) was produced with
compact dimensions 1.5 mm diameter of the reduced section
(instead of 3 mm) and 1.5 mm of gage length (instead of
5 mm) in order to reach very high strain-rates (104 s1). Also in
this case both quasi-static and dynamic tests were performed on
samples with the same geometry.
3.1 Tests Varying the Strain-Rate
The low strain-rate tests were performed on a standard
electro-mechanical testing machine Zwick Z-100 (maximum
load 100 kN, maximum travel speed 5 mm/s). The medium
strain-rate tests were performed on a standard servo-hydraulic
testing machine Dartec HA100 (maximum load 100 kN;
maximum speed 100 mm/s). The high strain-rate tests were
performed using a Split Hopkinson Bar setup for direct tension.
The standard Hopkinson Bar setup is widely used to
characterize material at strain-rate in the order of magnitude of
103 s1. Several configurations can be adopted and in this work
the arrangement for direct tensile tests with two different setups
was used. One setup covering the 103 s1 range with standard
specimen dimensions (3 mm diameter) and a second setup
covering the 104 s1 range with miniaturized specimen dimen-
sions (1.5 mm diameter). The 103 s1 range setup consists of a
gas-gun, an impactor and input and output bars (see Fig. 3).
The gas-gun is 1.5 m long and is driven with compressed air.
The striker bar is a 750-mm long tube made from glass
reinforced nylon. The input bar is made from martensitic high
strength stainless steel (17-4PH) 10 mm in diameter and 6.8 m
long, with an anvil at one end. The output bar has the same
characteristics of the input bar and has a length of 3.4 m. The
anvil at the outer end of the input bar is hit by the striker which
is pneumatically accelerated. A tensile stress wave ri (incident
wave) is generated and propagates along the input bar toward
Fig. 3 Scheme of the Hopkinson Bar setup used to perform tensile tests (direct tension up to 103 s1)
Fig. 4 Diagrams of the waves recorded in terms of force vs. time for tests at 103 s1 (a) and 104 s1 (b)
the specimen. Due to the difference of the sound velocity in the
materials of the input and striker bars, the impact against the
anvil produces a pulse which has a time duration of about
600 ls, which corresponds to a length of about 3 m in the steel
bars. When the wave reaches the specimen, the wave is partly
reflected back into the input bar (reflected wave rr) and partly
transmitted to the output bar (transmitted wave rt). The waves
ri, rr, and rt are measured by means of semiconductor strain-
gages (KYOWA KSP-1-350-E). With respect to traditional
resistance strain-gages, this type of gage provides signals with a
very low noise level. The strain-gages are located at a distance
of 1700 mm from the specimen on the input bar and 200 mm
behind the specimen in the output bar. The signals were
acquired with a NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS PC-6133 acqui-
sition board at a sampling rate of 3 MHz with a maximum
resolution of 150 lV (14 bits in the range ±1.25 V).
In order to extend the range in strain-rate, different types of
tests can be used, such as Hopkinson Bar, Taylor and Flyer
Impact tests. In general, very high strain-rates using a
Hopkinson Bar setup can be achieved in two ways. One
possibility is to increase the speed of the striker bar, but this
also increases the stress level in the bar, which is limited by the
yield strength of its material. Another possibility is the
reduction of the specimen dimensions, but also here there are
some restrictions. The reduction of the length of the sample can
only be achieved by maintaining the length to diameter ratio of
the specimen to ensure a uniaxial stress state. Decreasing the
diameter of the specimen inevitably reduces the level of force
on the output bar and concomitantly a low output signal to
noise ratio is obtained. Furthermore, the specimen has to be
large enough to be representative of the material under testing.
A widely used technique requires the miniaturization of the
setup: in this way it is possible to increase the strain-rate,
keeping at the same time the test design simple with the
possibility to directly compare the results with those obtained at
lower strain-rate. The benefits of developing miniaturized setup
for compression tests have been reported (Ref 28).
In this work, the authors developed a miniaturized setup for
tensile tests, which consists of a gas-gun 1 m long which uses
compressed air. The impactor was a tube made from aluminum
and it is 150 mm long. The input bar was made from
martensitic high strength stainless steel (17-4PH) with a
10 mm of diameter and 2 m long, with an anvil at one end.
The output bar had a diameter of 6 mm with a length of
500 mm. The strain-gages were located at 250 mm on the input
bar and 50 mm on the output bar from the specimen.
In Fig. 4, the waves (in terms of force vs. time) recorded
during the tests with the two Hopkinson setups are shown.
Since in both setups, the measuring points are located far from
the specimen ends, the forces and displacements at the actual
ends of the specimen necessitate shifting of the recorded signals
forward or backward, toward the interface with the specimen.
Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance
Accordingly, the timing of incident, reflected and transmitted
waves, was performed on the basis that equilibrium conditions
were reached in terms of force at both ends of the specimen (see
Fig. 4). Moreover, an algorithm for the wave dispersion
correction was applied (Ref 29).
3.2 Tests Varying the Temperature
In order to completely characterize the material behavior, it
is important to perform tests at different temperatures, permit-
ting the description of the thermal softening effects on the
material strength. Such tests were limited to quasi-static tests
(103 s1) at 20, 200, 400, 500, 600, and 800C. The heating
of the specimen was performed using an induction coil system,
designed to concentrate the heat flux in the gage length of the
specimen. The temperature was controlled via a Proportional-
Integral-Derivative controller (PID controller), commonly used
in closed control loop, which adjusts the command signal to the
heating system on the basis of the measurements obtained from
thermocouples directly welded on the specimen surface far
from the gage length. The thermocouples were not welded on
Fig. 5 Scheme of the location of the thermocouples (T) for the
temperature calibration (a); details of the testing system used in qua-
si-static up to medium strain-rate at high temperature (b)
Fig. 6 Experimental results in terms of engineering stress vs. engineering strain: (a) varying the temperature at strain rate 103 s1; (b) varying
the strain-rate at room temperature. (b) Two curves are labeled as 103 s1: one refers to the results obtained from the specimen with D = 3 mm
and L = 5 mm (solid line), the other refers to the results obtained from the specimen with D = 1.5 mm and L = 1.5 mm (dashed line)
Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance
the middle of the specimens to avoid any undesired influences
at the neck. Before performing the tests, a calibration procedure
was performed to correlate the temperature in the middle of the
gage length with the temperature where the thermocouples are
welded and to monitor the uniformity of the heating. Five
thermocouples were used in the calibration procedure to obtain
the temperature distribution along the gage length of the
specimen (Fig. 5). Given the small dimension of the specimen
and the high power of the heating induction system, the
maximum difference in temperature between the middle of the
specimen and the position of the control thermocouple T1 was
in the order of magnitude of 2%, registered at 200C. In more
details, the absolute error in temperature was about 5C in all
the investigated range of temperature. Similarly, the maximum
difference in the gage length, from T2 to T4, was less than 1%.
In a real test, only one thermocouple at position 1 was used for
the temperature control. Each specimen was kept for about
5 min at the desired temperature before performing the test, in
order to reach uniform temperature.
4. Experimental Results
For each loading condition, at least two tests were
performed in order to evaluate the repeatability of the results.
The engineering stress-strain curves of the material are given in
Fig. 6 as a function of temperature and strain rate (the levels of
strain-rate reported in the next figures represent the nominal
values of the tests).
The material, as expected, is both strain-rate and tempera-
ture sensitive. By varying the strain-rate, the material strength
increases due to the dynamic hardening: the initial oscillations
observed in high strain-rate tests are not related to a material
behavior (yielding), but are typical signal aberrations in
Hopkinson Bar tensile tests (Ref 30). In test at 103 s1, it is
possible to control the source of error, such as misalignment,
initial clearance, etc.; in miniaturized setup 104 s1,the problem
is amplified (higher level of acceleration) and more difficult to
control. Comparing the quasi-static data obtained from the two
geometries it appeared evident that they produce the same
results until necking starts. After this, the stress versus strain is
strongly dependent on the geometry and the results differ. The
material strength gradually decreases with increasing the
temperature and the shape of the stress-strain curve changes
dramatically at 800C, where the material behaves like a
perfectly plastic material. The results obtained are in accor-
dance with those expected for this kind of material (Ref 17).
The strain at failure increases with strain-rate and temperature.
The high strain-rate tests were recorded using a high-speed
camera (Photron SA5: maximum resolution 1024 9 1024,
maximum frame-rate 106 frame/s) and the sequences obtained
for two tests performed nominally at 103 s1 are reported in
Fig. 7. The images are acquired at 25,000 frame/s. Analyzing
the images indicates that the phase of necking took a long time
during the test. Moreover, also in high dynamic loading
condition, the necking area was localized in the middle of the
specimen which reached an equilibrium status during the
dynamic test and the deformed shape was comparable with that
of a quasi-static test.
5. Constitutive Model and Optimization Procedure
The specimen geometry could affect the results and their
interpretation as early necking can occur (see Fig. 7). Moreover
non-uniform stress, strain, strain-rate, and temperature distri-
butions could develop inside the specimen. To correctly
compute all these effects, the real strength model of the
material has to be extracted using a numerical procedure based
on an inverse method for optimization.
The main objective of such an inverse optimization method
is the determination of a selected set of unknown parameters in
a numerical model. Starting from a trial point, the unknown
parameters are estimated iteratively by comparing experimen-
tally measured with numerically computed quantities for the
same material test conditions. The great advantage of this
procedure is that no hypothesis about the internal specimen
stress-strain, temperature, or strain-rate fields is made. In fact,
the comparison is made in terms of macroscopic quantities that,
in general, are force and displacement. The main disadvantage
of inverse methods is the high computational times that these
algorithms need in an iterative procedure using many FEM
simulations. The number of iterations increases dramatically
when the degrees of freedom of the problem grow or the trial
parameters are far from optimum.
For the material under investigation, the widely used J-C
model was chosen (Ref 17), which expresses the flow stress as
  e_ pl
 
T  Tr
m 
ry ¼ A þ Benpl 1 þ C ln 1 ;
e_ 0 Tm  Tr
ðEq 1Þ
where A is the elastic limit strength, B and n are the work
hardening parameters, C is the strain-rate sensitivity coeffi-
cient, and m describes the thermal softening. The thermal ef-
fects are also described as a function of Tr, a reference
temperature at which there are no thermal effects and Tm that
is the melting temperature at which the material mechanical
strength is zero. In the LS-DYNA formulation (Ref 24), e_ 0
represents the strain-rate threshold, i.e., the highest strain-
rate for which the strain-rate effects on the flow stress are
neglected.
In FE codes, usually, the J-C model could take account of
thermal softening essentially due to heat conversion of plastic
work occurring at high strain-rate deformations. For
e_ 0 ‡ 102 s1 both thermal conduction and convection can be
neglected and thermal softening can be evaluated under the
assumption of adiabatic conditions. Given this last hypothesis
and the further assumption of uniform stress, strain, and
temperature fields, the temperature can be analytically com-
puted as a function of plastic work.
Before starting with the description of the optimization
results, it is important to underline that the J-C model is a
purely empirical model and it is necessary to decide which of
its parameters should be considered as optimization variables
without any physical interpretation. For what concerns the
strain-hardening effect, three parameters (A, B, and n) are
available to fit the data and different procedures can be used: all
the strain-hardening coefficients can be optimized or one of
them can be fixed a priori and the other two optimized. For
what concerns the temperature sensitivity, usually, the only J-C
temperature parameter that is considered as an optimization
variable is m. This approach could lead to a poor fit, but an
improvement can be achieved if Tm is also considered as an
optimization variable.
Similarly, for the strain-rate sensitivity, only the parameter C
is usually considered as an optimization variable, while e_ 0 is set
equal to 1 s1, as in the original formulation. In LS-DYNA this
choice would mean that the strain-rate influence is neglected for
all the numerical simulations of tests with strain-rates less than
unity. If also e_ 0 is used as optimization variable, an improve-
ment in the experimental data fit could be obtained.
The optimization of the parameters was performed with a
dedicated algorithm included in the software LS-OPT that
manages the parameter variation strategy, runs the numerical
simulation, performed in LS-DYNA, analyzes the results, and
extracts the optimum set of parameters. All the simulations
were performed with an explicit integration method and in
order to reduce the computational time for low strain-rate tests
the deformation rate was increased with respect to the
experimental conditions (see the following discussion for
details).
As first step, for each experimental curve, the numerical
interpolation of the experimental data (with the strain hardening
part of the model) was performed, which basically is equivalent
to the calculation of true stress-true strain data starting from
experimental force-stroke curve (see Fig. 8). By performing
this calculation numerically (instead of a standard analytical
approach), it is possible to account of the change in shape of the
specimen during necking. The deformation mechanism of the
specimen is supposed to be a function only of the stress-strain
relation of the material and not of the test speed. After an
analysis of the experimentally deformed shapes, this hypothesis
could be considered as reasonable (i.e., inertia effects could be
neglected). The failure condition of each curve was numerically
obtained in correspondence to the stroke at which the specimen
failure occurred: for each curve, the maximum strain is the
equivalent plastic strain at failure (average value in the necking
section). The quality of the procedure was confirmed, as the
results obtained from the models of the two geometries (3-mm
diameter specimens and 1.5-mm diameter specimens) in quasi-
static tests produced the same J-C model (see Fig. 8), i.e., if the
material properties are based on the same strength model, they
must be geometry independent.
Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance
Fig. 7 Sequence of images taken with a high speed camera at 25,000 f/s for tests at a strain rate of 103 s1 compared with the results of
numerical analysis (see section 5)
The thermal softening and the strain-rate sensitivities of the
material were analyzed starting from the diagrams of Fig. 8.
The stress values (obtained at the fixed value of strain of 20%)
were normalized with respect to the stress value obtained for
quasi-static test at room temperature. For a complete analysis,
also others strain levels were analyzed (until 100% of strain).
However, the 20% data were considered as representative of the
behavior over a wider range in strain, also because, in
accordance with the J-C formulation, the behavior is the same
at each strain (both in temperature and strain-rate). For the
evaluation of the temperature sensitivity, the data were
analytically fitted with the J-C expression for the thermal
softening. In order to get the best level of accuracy, as
Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance
mentioned above, both m and Tm were considered as fitting
variables. The parameters obtained at this stage were fixed in all
the subsequent analyses. Similarly, it is possible to obtain a first
estimation of J-C model parameters (C and e_ 0 ), by performing a
linear piecewise interpolation of the data.
In Fig. 9, the stress data and their interpolation are
compared with literature data (Ref 17) for two different types
of steel. For the strain-rate sensitivity, the stress level is
saturated at the quasi-static value for strain-rate less than e_ 0 ,
accordingly to the implementation of the J-C model in
LS-DYNA.
These preliminary results are affected by two different types
of approximation:
Fig. 8 Results of the first optimization procedure in terms of equivalent stress vs. equivalent plastic strain: (a) varying the temperature; (b)
varying the strain-rate
Fig. 9 Temperature (a) and strain-rate (b) sensitivities
– the influence of the non-uniformity of strain-rate and tem-
perature in the specimen is neglected. In this way, each
experimental result is reproduced by a stress-strain (pure
hardening) relation and the obtained strength model could
be considered representative of an average behavior of the
material at the nominal strain-rate and/or temperature con-
dition of the test (i.e., strain-rate and temperature are con-
sidered constant in the specimen);
– the self heating of the material due to the adiabatic condi-
tion (conversion of mechanical work into heat) in high
strain-rate tests is ignored.
To overcome these issues, a Multi-Objective Optimization
(MOO) procedure was performed, in which all the tests at
different strain-rates were simultaneously simulated. The final
goal is the determination of the global set of J-C model
parameters, which reproduces as best as possible all the tests.
Both the thermal softening and the strain-rate parameters
should be estimated considering the variation of the corre-
sponding properties on the basis of multiple data curves. All the
tests at strain-rate lower than 102 s1 were assumed and
simulated as isothermal, while the other tests were considered
to be adiabatic. The dynamic tests were simulated with the real
velocity profiles (i.e., the real strain rate time history). If the
different objectives conflict, no single solution can be consid-
ered optimum with respect to all the objectives (Ref 31). The
optimal solution is such that any further attempts to optimize on
a single objective lead to worse results for the other(s) (Ref 32).
Mathematically, the MOO unconstrained problem is defined
as follows:
min FðU1 ; U2 ; . . . ; UN Þ; ðEq 2Þ
where F represents the multi-objective function and
Uk ¼ Uk ðx1 ; x2 ; . . . ; xn Þ ðk ¼ 1; . . . ; N Þ are the various objec-
tive functions with xi (i = 1,…,n) the n design variables. In
particular, the MOO function is defined as
X
N
F¼ xk Uk ; ðEq 3Þ
k¼1
where xk are the weights to assign to each single objective
function. It is important to note that each objective function has
a target. For the analysis performed in this work, all the weights
xk are set to unity, so all the objectives are equally important.
Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance
Table 3 J-C parameters obtained as results of the MOO procedure: the parameters fixed a priori for each case
are reported in italic
A, MPa B, MPa n e_ 0 (s21) C Tm, K m rRMSE, %

SET1 446 601 0.186 10.5 0.0388 1142 1.35 3.58

SET2A 446 511 0.221 103 0.0219 1142 1.35 6.50
SET2B 475 545 0.221 1 0.0219 1142 1.35 6.50
SET3 446 592 0.174 6.27 0.0272 … … 4.40

Fig. 10 Results of the optimization (SET1): comparison between numerical and experimental force vs. displacement curve for quasi-static, low
and high strain-rate tests

For the present study, the single objective function was the
Mean Squared Error (MSE) Uk, defined as (Ref 25)
 
1X P
fp ðxÞ  Gp 2
Uk ¼ WP ; ðEq 4Þ
P p¼1 sp
where P is the number of points (about 100 for this analysis)
in which the MSE is calculated, Gp, varying p, are the
values on the target curve G and fp(x) the corresponding com-
ponents of the computed curve f. Wp and sp are scale func-
tions for each point p and finally x is the design vector.
Several definitions of the MSE are possible by varying the
value of the scale function sp. In this analysis, the relative
MSE is considered with sp constant and equal to the maxi-
mum of G.
Three different procedures (SET 1, 2A and 2B, and 3) were
used and the results are summarized in Table 3.
For SET1, the optimization was performed on the strain-
hardening and strain-rate parts of the model, while the thermal
softening parameters were fixed to those obtained analytically
on the basis of quasi-static curves varying the temperature
(m = 1.352 and Tm = 1141.8 K). The parameter A was fixed to
that obtained for the quasi-static test at room temperature
(A = 445.7 MPa). The variables for the optimization were B, n,
C, and e_ 0 . The optimized set of parameters produced a medium
percentage rRMSE (relative root means square error) of 3.6%.
In this case, the J-C model was used in accordance with the
LS-DYNA formulation, i.e., e_ 0 was considered as a threshold
under which any strain-rate effects are neglected. This model
could be applied in case of dynamic loading conditions with

Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance

self-heating (e.g., impacts) and for quasi-static loading condi-
tions at different temperatures.
For SET2A and SET2B, the procedure was similar to that
used for SET1, but in this case the strain-rate threshold was
fixed equal to the lowest strain-rate level of the tests (103 s1)
in case 2A and equal to 1 s1 in case 2B. The parameter A was
fixed to that obtained for the quasi-static test at room
temperature for case 2A and properly scaled for case 2B, in
accordance with the variation of the strain-rate threshold. The
variables for the optimization were B, n, and C. The optimized
sets of parameters produce a medium percentage error of 6.5%
and much more precise results with respect to the previous set
were obtained for the low strain-rate loading condition. The set
2B could be suitable for numerical simulations performed in FE
codes in which the J-C model is implemented in its original
formulation ( e_ 0 = 1 s1 without threshold, i.e., different from
LS-DYNA).
In case of SET3, the effect of the self-heating was included
in the strain-rate sensitivity, i.e., the thermal part of the J-C
model was considered to be unity. The parameter A was fixed
for the single optimization of the quasi-static test at room
temperature (A = 445.7 MPa). The variables for the optimiza-
tion were B, n, C, and e_ 0 . The optimized set of parameters
produced a medium percentage error of 4.4% and should be
used in dynamic loading conditions.
By the evaluation of the rRMSE, it is possible to conclude
that the best set of parameters is the SET1, for which the
comparison between experimental and numerical results in
terms of force versus displacement is reported in Fig. 10. The
greatest error lies in the quasi-static test, but for low and high
strain-rate tests, the model is able to reproduce the material
behavior with a good level of accuracy.
6. Conclusions
In this work, the investigation of the mechanical response of
T91 steel was performed at different temperatures and strain-
rates, in order to improve the analysis of innovative joining
techniques and the evaluation of structural response to dynamic
loading resulting from reactor accident conditions.
The mechanical tests at different strain-rates were performed
from 103 to 104 s1. In order to reach such high strain-rate
tests, a miniaturized Hopkinson Bar arrangement for direct
tensile tests was developed. The tests varying the temperature
(from room temperature to 800C) were performed in quasi-
static loading condition and the specimen was heated using an
induction coil system. The experimental results clearly indicate
that the material is both temperature and strain-rate sensitive
and the J-C visco-plastic model was chosen to reproduce
the data using a numerical inverse procedure of optimization.
With this aim, a numerical inverse MOO was performed in
order to extract a set of model parameters able to reproduce the
behavior of the material under different loading conditions (at
different strain-rates), simultaneously. Different configurations
were evaluated and the best results were obtained with:
A = 445.7 MPa, B = 601.1 MPa, n = 0.186, e_ 0 =10.52 s1,
C = 0.0388, Tm = 1141.8 K, and m = 1.352. This set of
parameters is able to reproduce the behavior of the material
up to strain-rates in the order of 104 s1 with a good level of
accuracy. For the modeling of high strain-rate behavior also a
simplified formulation of the J-C model, in which the
temperature dependence is not considered, was obtained and
the results are also satisfactory. Furthermore, a deterioration in
the model accuracy was observed if the strain-rate threshold
e_ 0 was fixed, as usually performed in many engineering
applications.
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