Notched Creep Damage Assessment Based on EBSD Observation for Austenitic Stainless Steel

Creep damage processes for smooth and notched specimen of austenitic stainless steel through interrupted creep tests using multiple specimens. The material used was 18-8 stainless steel for boiler tube use. The mid-sections of interrupted creep test specimens were observed through SEM(Scanning Electron Microscope) instrumented with EBSD(Electron BackScatter Diffraction patter) equipment. IPF(Inverse Pole Figure) maps, Phase maps and GOS(Grain Orientation Spread) maps were used for investigating creep damage process. For smooth specimen, the relationship between macroscopic creep time fraction and GOS averaged for all pixels showed linearity, while the relationship between creep strain and the averaged GOS showed non-linearity regressed by Green function successfully. For notched specimen, the EBSD maps became noisy possibly due to extensive phase transformation under highly concentrated notch stress. Obtained GOS data for gamma phase only showed non-monotonic change with time and nominal strain. The evaluated local strains in the vicinity of the notch showed relatively small amount, which might cause the very long creep life compared with smooth specimen under the same nominal stress condition.

Ultrasonic Fatigue Tests on a High Strength Steel for Welded Structure

In this paper, the ultrasonic fatigue machine which works at frequency of 20kHz is utilized to conduct the ultrasonic fatigue tests on a high strength welding structural steel with symmetric cycle stress R=－1 at room temperature. Two typical specimen geometries are tested: smooth specimen and notch specimen. The fatigue tests of smooth specimen are also carried out on the electromagnetic resonance equipment at conventional frequency. A comparison is made between the fatigue test results at the ultrasonic and conventional frequency.

Acoustic Emission Study of Corrosion Fatigue and Fatigue for API 5L X70 Gas Pipeline Steel

Acoustic emission is a very important test among non-destructive tests, and it has been applied for the detection of failures in various types of equipment in the petroleum industry, such as pressure vessels, tanks and pipelines. In this study, the effect of pre-existing uniform corrosion on the corrosion fatigue specimen and smooth specimen on fatigue behaviour of API 5L X70 steel pipeline in long life range was investigated by using acoustic emission in fatigue test. The presence of pre-existing uniform corrosion specimen, produces by 4 month immersion in sulphuric acid, H2SO4 (concentration 0.2 ml H2SO4 in 5000 ml deionized water ). Fully reverse (R = -1) constant amplitude fatigue test were done in corrosion fatigue and smooth specimen in different stress amplitudes. It was found that, effect of pre-existing uniform corrosion significantly reduced the fatigue life of the steel pipeline. The correlations of accumulative AE counts for corrosion fatigue higher than fatigue test because of the mechanisms of possible AE sources due to corrosion.