Thermo-mechanical fatigue stress-strain data on ferritic/austenitic steels and superalloys from a variety of sources are analysed with regard to hysteresis loop stress asymmetry. This arises from a decoupling of the thermal and mechanical strain signals in the test technique so that many tensioncompression load combinations are possible. Data from simplified isothermal and bithermal tests are also examined. Taking a typical example of an "out-of-phase'' thermo-mechanical loop on a %CrMoV steel cycled between 200 and 550"C, isothermal stress-strain data were generated at 50°C intervals on material from the same cast and, used in conjunction with the elastic characteristics of the apparatus, an attempt was made to re-create this loop. The methods employed were (i) a graphical construction between appropriate isothermal yield contours (ii) a tangent modulus calculation (iii) a secant modulus calculation. Method (i) appeared to give the closest agreement in the present case. NOMENCLATURE A = constant in stress-strain law E = Young's modulus E, , = tangent modulus E,,, = secant modulus T = temperature r, q, F, G = listed parameters abbreviated for convenience T, , , = maximum temperature in cycle Tmi, = minimum temperature in cycle c( = expansion coefficient p = constant in stress-strain law AT = temperature rangeA$ = plastic strain range Aet = total strain range Au = stress range e, = total strain u = stress uT = peak tension stress uc = peak compression stress uT/bC = bias ratio