Inversion of Ramberg–Osgood equation and description of hysteresis loops

Abstract

The Ramberg–Osgood equation has been approximately inverted. Four orders of approximations providing progressively more accurate inversions are considered. The second order inversion is used to develop closed-form relations for stress in terms of strain and for cyclic stress in terms of cyclic strain. Explicit relations between the cyclic-strength coefficient and the cyclic strain-hardening exponent and between the cyclic strain-hardening exponent and the elastic modulus are developed. Application to nine different engineering metals shows that the proposed approximate inversion provides a powerful tool for describing stress–strain relations. Examples of hysteresis loops for a number of strain time-histories are presented. Also, it is shown that augmenting the strain time-history with fictitious strain segments to close all the hysteresis loops yields the same stress–strain relation as that obtained through the rain-flow counting method.