a b s t r a c tThe effect of strain rate on dynamic strain aging of cold-rolled Ni-based alloy was investigated. With decreasing strain rate, the stress amplitude of serrations first increased and then saturated. Compared with the solution-annealed condition, the thermally-treated condition produced smaller stress amplitudes that saturated at a lower strain rate. Observations are consistent with a mechanism in which the locking strength of solute atmospheres first increases with increasing solute atom arrival at dislocations and gradually saturates as solute reaches a critical level.Serrated plastic flow (dynamic strain aging (DSA) or Portevin-Le Chatelier (PLC)) is observed in many alloys during deformation in specific temperature and strain rate ranges. It is widely believed that it arises from the interactions between diffusing solute atoms and mobile dislocations that are temporarily impeded [1,2]. Much previous work has been done to investigate the influence of different variables on DSA. Related work [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] on different alloys show that increasing strain rate results in decreasing amplitude of the stress drop. The lowest strain rate applied in those works was 10 À7 s À1 . Because many important phenomena, such as stress corrosion cracking, occur at strain rates below this level, it is of interest to understand DSA behavior at lower strain rates. The alloy of interest in this work is Alloy 690 which is widely used in nuclear power plant components exposed to high temperatures and low strains. The typical creep rate of this alloy in simulated pressurized water reactor primary water environment is in the range of 10 À10 -10 À9 s À1 [13]. The effect of carbon concentration was also studied by testing samples subjected to different thermal treatments. To date, very limited work has been done to study the DSA of this alloy [9,14,15].The chemical composition of Alloy 690 used in this work is 57.6 wt.% Ni, 32.7% Cr, 8.64% Fe, 0.25% Mn, 0.315% Al, 0.08% Si and 0.02% C. The alloy was received as a forged bar with a diameter of 185 mm. It was solution annealed (SA) at 1100°C for 1 h and then water quenched. In order to change the carbon concentration in matrix, some solution annealed samples were thermally treated (SA + TT) at 700°C for 17 h and cooled in air. Both SA and SA + TT samples were then cold rolled (CR) to 20% thickness reduction, resulting in a sheet of approximately 8 mm in thickness. The cold rolled sheet was machined into round tensile bars with the sample axis in the rolling direction. The gage section of the tensile bar is 20 mm in length and 2 mm in diameter. Samples were mechanically abraded up to 4000 grit and then electropolished for 30 s at 30 V in a solution of 10% (volume fraction) perchloric acid in methanol. Some coupons were also prepared for carbide analysis using the same procedure. Grain boundary carbides were characterized with scanning electron microscope (SEM) on a FEI Helios Nanolab 650. Tensile bars were strained to failure in 360°C high purity water contai...