The recovery creep of niobium-stabilised austenitic stainless steels

The creep properties of niobium-stabilised stainless steels of carbon contents in the range 0.01 to 0.05% carbon can be accounted for by the general recovery theory of creep. The high stress dependencies of recovery and creep rate can be adequately explained through an internal friction stress or impedance term, retarding recovery. Measurement of this friction term by dislocation density and stress relaxation techniques provides the correct stress dependencies when applied to the modified recovery theory.     

The multiaxial creep ductility of austenitic stainless steels

Calculations of creep damage under conditions of strain control are often carried out using either a time fraction approach or a ductility exhaustion approach. In practice, calculations of creep damage are further complicated by the presence of multiaxial states of stress. In the case of the time fraction approach, there are a number of models that can be used to predict the effect of state of stress on creep rupture strength. In particular, Huddleston developed a model from data on stainless steels. The R5 procedure uses a ductility exhaustion approach to calculate creep damage and includes a model for use under triaxial states of stress. The aim of this paper is to describe the development of this model, which is based on considerations of cavity nucleation and growth and was developed from multiaxial creep data on Type 304 and 316 steels.     

Effects of serrated grain boundaries on the crack growth in austenitic heat-resisting steels during high-temperature creep

The effect of serrated grain boundaries on creep crack growth is investigated using an austenitic 21Cr-4Ni-9Mn steel principally at 700° C. The relationship between the microstructure of specimens and the crack growth behaviour is discussed. The creep crack growth rate in the specimens with a surface notch is relatively reduced by serrated grain boundaries especially in the early stage of crack growth. The life of crack propagation in the specimens with serrated grain boundaries is longer compared with that of the specimens with straight grain boundaries. It is confirmed in the surface crack growth of smooth round bar specimens crept at 700° C that serrated grain boundaries are effective in retarding the growth of a grain-boundary crack less than about 4×10^–4 m long, and that this effect decreases with increasing crack length. It is suggested that crack deflection due to serrated grain boundaries caused a decrease in the stress intensity factor of the grain-boundary crack and resulted in a decrease of the crack growth rate in the steel. The crack arrest at the deflection points and the circumvention of crack path on the serrated grain-boundaries may also contribute to the retardation of the grain-boundary crack growth during creep. Further, it is deduced from the experimental results on the notched specimens that the creep fracture is caused by the linkage of the main crack to many microcracks and voids on the grain-boundary at 900°C.     

Improvement of high-temperature oxidation resistance and strength in alumina-forming austenitic stainless steels

A new alumina-forming austenitic stainless steel with greatly improved high-temperature oxidation resistance and strength was developed via alloying 3.0 wt.% Al in the Fe-25Ni-18Cr based alloy. Continuous, stable and exclusive alumina scale was formed in either dry air or air with 10% water vapor mixed environment at 800 °C. The long-term high-temperature oxidation performance is appreciably enhanced which is associated with the high density of the B2-NiAl precipitation phase maintaining the Al₂O₃ surface layer. Moreover, when tested at 750 °C in dry air environment, the new steel showed high yield and fracture tensile strength of 310–335 and 480–500 MPa, respectively.     

Precipitation during aging in N-containing austenitic stainless steels

Two different N-containing austenitic stainless steels were aged at temperatures from 600 to 800 °C for 10 to 1000 min in order to study the precipitation kinetics. In general, the fastest precipitation occurred in the aged steel with higher content of interstitial solutes, named 24Cr–15Ni–4Mn–0.32N–0.04C steel. Time-temperature-precipitation, TTP, diagrams showed that the intergranular precipitation of M₂₃C₆ and M₂N preceded to the intragranular precipitation of M₂N and M₂N and η phase in the aged 24Cr–15Ni–4Mn–0.32N–0.04C and 12Cr–12Ni–10Mn–5Mo–0.24N–0.02C steels, respectively. Besides, the presence of cellular precipitation of austenite and M₂N was observed to occur in the aged 24Cr–15Ni–4Mn–0.32N–0.04C steel.     

Microporosity formation in partially melted zone during welding of high nitrogen austenitic stainless steels

Gas tungsten arc welding experiments were conducted using austenitic stainless steel containing 0.51%N and 0.78%N. Microstructure observation and hardness measurement were made to study the loss of nitrogen. It was found that welding resulted in a considerable loss of hardness in the weld metal for the case of 0.78%N steel, but not for 0.51%N steel. We explain this in terms of a higher nitrogen content enabling a significantly smaller critical pore size and hence N₂ porosity formation to be energetically more favourable. The major finding was that, for the case of 0.78%N steel, a band of microporosity was observed along and near the complete fusion boundary of the weld. It was identified that these micropores were present in the parent metal, not in the weld metal. Partial melting in the zone next to the complete fusion boundary resulted in a nitrogen content significantly higher than the solubility of nitrogen in the liquid channels or pockets. Nitrogen gas pores then formed and became trapped in that zone. Supporting this forming mechanism of microporosity band was the fact that hardness decreased in that zone due to the loss of nitrogen in phase matrix for solute strengthening and that nitride particles disappeared after welding.     

Modeling and experimental study of long term creep damage in austenitic stainless steels

One of the main challenges for some reactors components in austenitic stainless steels at high temperature in-service conditions is the demonstration of their behavior up to 60 years. The creep lifetimes of these stainless steels require on the one hand to carry out very long term creep tests and on the other hand to understand and to model the damage mechanisms in order to propose physically-based predictions toward 60 years of service. Different batches of austenitic stainless steels like-type 316L with low carbon and closely specified nitrogen content, 316L(N), are subjected to numerous creep tests carried out at various stresses and temperatures between 525 °C and 700 °C up to nearly 50 • 10³ h.Interrupted creep tests show an acceleration of the creep deformation only during the last 15% of creep lifetime, which corresponds to macroscopic necking. The modeling of necking using the Norton viscoplastic power-law allows lifetime predictions in fair agreement with experimental data up to a transition time of about ten thousand hours which is temperature dependent. In fact, one experimental result together with literature ones, shows that the extrapolation of the ‘stress–lifetime’ curves obtained at high stress data leads to large overestimations of lifetimes at low stress. After FEG–SEM observations, these overestimates are mainly due to additional intergranular cavitation as often observed in many metallic materials in the long term creep regime. The modeling of cavity growth by vacancy diffusion along grain boundaries coupled with continuous nucleation proposed by Riedel is carried out. For each specimen, ten FEG–SEM images (about 250 observed grains) are analyzed to determine the rate of cavity nucleation assumed to be constant during each creep test in agreement with many literature results. This measured constant rate is the only measured parameter which is used as input of the Riedel damage model. Lifetimes for long term creep are rather fairly well evaluated by the lowest lifetime predicted by the necking model and the Riedel model predictions. This holds for experimental lifetimes up to 200,000 h and for temperatures between 525 °C and 700 °C. A transition time as well as a transition stress is defined by the intersection of the lifetime curves predicted by the necking and Riedel modelings. This corresponds to the change in damage mechanism. The scatter in lifetimes predicted by the Riedel model induced by the uncertainty of some parameter values is less than a factor of three, similar to experimental scatter. This model is also validated for various other austenitic stainless steels such as 304H, 316H, 321H (creep rupture data provided by NIMS). A transition from power-law to viscous creep deformation regime is reported in the literature at 650 °C–700 °C for steel 316H. Taking into account the low stress creep rate law, it allows us to predict lifetimes up to 200,000 h at very high temperature in fair agreement with experimental data.     

Microstructural changes in austenitic stainless steels during long-term aging

Abstract

The microstructural changes, precipitation behaviour, and mechanical properties of typical austenitic stainless steels (304 H, 316 H, 321 H, 347 H, and Tempaloy A–1) have been examined after long-term aging. The steels were aged statically in the temperature range 600–800°C for up to 50000 h. The microstructural changes were observed by optical and transmission electron microscopy, and the extracted residue was identified using X-ray analysis. Time–temperature precipitation diagrams were made for each steel. The amount of σ-phase was measured in samples aged at 700°C. The hardness and impact-value changes, and the tensile properties of aged samples were measured.

MST/358     

Plastic deformation and creep damage evaluations of type 316 austenitic stainless steels by EBSD

The inspection method of plastic and/or creep deformations has been required as the quantitative damage estimation procedure for structural components especially used in electric power plants. In this study, the method using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) was applied to the deformation and damage evaluation of austenitic stainless steels strained by tension or compression at room temperature and also tested in creep at high temperature. It was found that the value of Grain Average Misorientation (GAM) which showed the average misorientation for the whole observed area including over several dozen grains, was a very useful parameter for quantifying the microstructural change as either the plastic or creep strain increased. The unique linear correlation was obtained between GAM and plastic strain in tension and compression. For creep damage evaluation, the difference of grain average misorientation from the value of the unstrained specimen (ΔGAM) showed an excellent correlation with the inelastic strain below strain at which the tertiary creep began.     

Fatigue crack propagation in austenitic stainless steels

Fatigue crack growth rate was found to be independent of grain size in 309S stainless steel, for grain sizes of 45 and 480 μm. The data were compared to literature results for a variety of stable and unstable austenitic alloys, and were shown to agree well.     

Nickel-free austenitic stainless steels for medical applications

Abstract

The adverse effects of nickel ions being released into the human body have prompted the development of high-nitrogen nickel-free austenitic stainless steels for medical applications. Nitrogen not only replaces nickel for austenitic structure stability but also much improves steel properties. Here we review the harmful effects associated with nickel in medical stainless steels, the advantages of nitrogen in stainless steels, and emphatically, the development of high-nitrogen nickel-free stainless steels for medical applications. By combining the benefits of stable austenitic structure, high strength and good plasticity, better corrosion and wear resistances, and superior biocompatibility compared to the currently used 316L stainless steel, the newly developed high-nitrogen nickel-free stainless steel is a reliable substitute for the conventional medical stainless steels.     

Monitoring fatigue degradation in austenitic stainless steels

During cyclic loading of austenitic stainless steel, microstructural changes occurred, which affected both mechanical and physical properties. For certain steels, a strain‐induced martensitic phase transformation was observed. The investigations showed that for the given material and loading conditions the volume fraction of martensite depended on the cycle number, temperature and initial material state. It was found that the martensite content continuously increased with the cycle number. Therefore, the volume fraction of martensite was used for indication of the fatigue usage. The temperature dependence of the martensite formation was described by a Boltzmann function. The martensite content decreased with increasing temperature. Two different heats of the austenitic stainless steel X6CrNiTi18‐10 (AISI 321, DIN 1.4541) were investigated. The martensite formation rate was much higher for the cold‐worked material than for the solution‐annealed one. All applied techniques, neutron diffraction and advanced magnetic methods allowed the detection of martensite in the differently fatigued specimens.     

Small-scale resistance spot welding of austenitic stainless steels

Small-scale resistance spot welding (SSRSW) was carried out for austenitic stainless steels. A weld lobe that shows the process window for making sound joints was obtained for type 304 stainless steel thin sheets, and the effects of welding current, force and weld time on joint strength and nugget size were investigated. The cooling rate that was estimated from the solidification cell size was approximately 2.4 × 10⁵ K/s which is almost similar to that produced by laser beam welding. The microstructures of weld zones were almost fully austenitic due to the rapid solidification rate. Despite the fully austenitic microstructure, no hot cracking was found in types 302, 304, 316L, 310S and 347 austenitic stainless steels by SSRSW. Rapid cooling rate in SSRSW made it difficult to predict the microstructures from the conventional Schaeffler diagram.     

High-temperature ductility of AISI 310 austenitic stainless steels

Abstract

The effects of deformation temperature and additions of impurity elements on the ductility of solution–treated 25Cr–20Ni steels have been examined at the relatively high strain rate of 0·11 ^s?1 by means of hot tensile tests. The ductility v. temperature curve can be divided into three regions: region I, 1000–1200 K, where there is a ductility minimum due to M₂₃C₆ precipitation on grain boundaries; region II, 1225–1400 K, which exhibits a plateau or a slight trough of ductility with corrugated boundaries as a result of dynamic recrystallization localized near the boundaries; and region III, 1450–1600 K, where recrystallization through the whole specimen leads to ductile fracture with complete necking. It was also confirmed that the grain boundary segregation of Sb and S and the sulphide precipitation on the grain boundaries accelerate intergranular cracking and reduce ductility in the range 1075–1300 K, and that, because sulphide particles melt on boundaries, the zero ductility temperature is markedly lowered by the addition of impurities such as S, P, or Sb.

MST/364