Further Evaluation of Creep-Fatigue Life Prediction Methods for Low-Carbon Nitrogen-Added 316 Stainless Steel

Abstract

Low-carbon, medium-nitrogen 316 stainless steel is a principal candidate for a main structural material of a demonstration fast breeder reactor plant in Japan. A number of long-term creep tests and creep-fatigue tests have been conducted for four products of this steel. Two representative creep-fatigue life prediction methods, i.e., time fraction rule and ductility exhaustion method were applied. Total stress relaxation behavior was simulated well by an addition of a viscous strain term to the conventional (primary plus secondary) creep strain, but only the letter was assumed to contribute to creep damage in the ductility exhaustion method. The present ductility exhaustion approach was found to have very good accuracy in creep-fatigue life prediction for all materials tested, while the time fraction rule tended to overpredict failure life as large as a factor of 30. Discussion was made on the reason for this notable difference.