The Influence of the Bauschinger Effect on the Yield Stress, Young’s Modulus, and Poisson’s Ratio of a Gun Barrel Steel

The Bauschinger effect (BE) was originally defined as the phenomenon whereby plastic deformation causes a loss of yield strength restraining in the opposite direction. The Bauschinger effect factor (BEF), defined as the ratio of the yield stress on reverse loading to the initial yield stress, is a measure of the magnitude of the BE. The aim of the present work is to quantitatively evaluate the influence of plastic deformation on other material properties such as Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio for gun barrel steel, thus extending the definition of the Bauschinger effect. In order to investigate the change in this material’s properties resulting from plastic deformation, several uniaxial tension and compression tests were performed. The yield stress and Young’s modulus were found to be strongly affected by plastic strain, while Poisson’s ratio was not affected at all. An additional result of these tests is an exact zero offset yield point definition enabling a simple evaluation of the BEF. A simple, triphase test sufficient to characterize the entire elastoplastic behavior is suggested. The obtained experimental information is readily useful for autofrettage residual stress field calculations.