The cyclic behavior and endurance of austenitic stainless steels tested under NPP-relevant laboratory conditions has been studied. It had been earlier shown that long intervals between fatigue transients can affect the fatigue performance in stainless steels that are generally used in NPP primary piping. If this can be confirmed, then the transferability between laboratory results, design curves and the fatigue behavior of NPP components during plant operation shall be addressed. In addition to coolant water environmental effects, the material response during steady state normal operation should also be accounted for. Advanced Fatigue Methodologies (AdFaM), a joint project of European research laboratories, vendors and plant operators was focused on empirical and mechanistic investigations to confirm the claimed effects of hold times on fatigue life. Strain-controlled fatigue tests incorporating accelerated hold times at temperatures between 290°C and 420°C were performed on stabilized and non-stabilized stainless steel grades, which are used in Germany and the UK. Two material batches of both alloy types (304L and 347) were studied. The mechanisms responsible for the observed variations in stress response and fatigue life have been investigated using a range of microscopy techniques. The results confirmed the extension of fatigue life due to hold times in both stabilized and non-stabilized grades. This life extension appears to be linked to hold hardening observed in the cyclic behavior of both alloys. Tests incorporating hold times may be more representative of material behavior in NPPs, where temperature transients due to start-ups, shutdowns and major power changes may be separated by long periods of steady state operation. This gives reason to consider the transferability of standard laboratory test data to fatigue assessments of NPP components, and to propose a new factor ( Fhold ) as part of an advanced fatigue methodology and realistic transferability factor: Freal = Fen × Fhold.
INCEFA-PLUS stands for INcreasing safety in nuclear power plants by Covering gaps in Environmental Fatigue Assessment. It is a five year project supported by the European Commission HORIZON2020 program that commenced in mid-2015 and in which sixteen organizations from across Europe participate. Specifically, the effects of mean strain/stress, hold time, strain amplitude and surface finish on fatigue life of austenitic stainless steels in light water reactor environments are being studied, these being issues of common interest to all participants. The project will develop proposals for improvements to methods for environmental fatigue assessment of nuclear plant components. Therefore, extensive testing capacity is being solicited in various laboratories across Europe in order to add to the existing amount of published data on environmentally assisted fatigue. Since there currently is no standard on environmental fatigue testing, it was imperative to come up with and agree upon a testing procedure within the consortium to minimize lab-to-lab variations in test results. This was done prior to the first phase of testing, but an update of the procedure was required after review of initial results, when additional potential lab-to-lab differences were identified. The current status of the so-called test protocol, and the key areas of difference found between different testing facilities, will be discussed. Due to the large test matrix within INCEFA-PLUS, distributed amongst various test laboratories, it has been necessary to develop a method to assign a data quality level to each test result, and a minimum data quality requirement for results that will be included in the project’s datasets used for analysis. Furthermore, the project has triggered international interest in facilitating mutual data access, and this requires data is gathered in a common database with data quality ratings applied. Ways to address the evaluation of data quality will be discussed. In a way, both activities, on a test protocol and on data review, jointly contribute to data quality by, respectively, ensuring a pre-test, common test procedure and a post-test, harmonized data evaluation. The large number of participants in the INCEFA-PLUS project presents a unique opportunity to gain consensus on light water reactor environment fatigue testing procedures and data quality assessment from experts working in a range of different organizations. The test protocol and data quality ratings developed within the INCEFA-PLUS project could be adopted by other organizations, or possibly used as the basis for future testing standards documents to harmonize approaches across the nuclear industry.
A substantial amount of research effort has been applied to the field of environmentally assisted fatigue (EAF) due to the requirement to account for the EAF behaviour of metals for existing and new build nuclear power plants. We present the results of the European project INcreasing Safety in NPPs by Covering Gaps in Environmental Fatigue Assessment (INCEFA-PLUS), during which the sensitivities of strain range, environment, surface roughness, mean strain and hold times, as well as their interactions on the fatigue life of austenitic steels has been characterized. The project included a test campaign, during which more than 250 fatigue tests were performed. The tests did not reveal a significant effect of mean strain or hold time on fatigue life. An empirical model describing the fatigue life as a function of strain rate, environment and surface roughness is developed. There is evidence for statistically significant interaction effects between surface roughness and the environment, as well as between surface roughness and strain range. However, their impact on fatigue life is so small that they are not practically relevant and can in most cases be neglected. Reducing the environmental impact on fatigue life by modifying the temperature or strain rate leads to an increase of the fatigue life in agreement with predictions based on NUREG/CR-6909. A limited sub-programme on the sensitivity of hold times at elevated temperature at zero force conditions and at elevated temperature did not show the beneficial effect on fatigue life found in another study.
There has been much focus in recent years on development of an empirical understanding of the effects of a range of variables on fatigue performance of nuclear plant materials in relevant operating environments — for example, the influences of surface finish, temperature, and cyclic waveform. To complement these empirical studies, a well-developed mechanistic understanding of Environmental Fatigue initiation behaviour is required to allow extrapolation of results beyond the variable ranges tested and to provide insight into the margins incorporated into fatigue analysis methods, including fatigue design curves. Mechanistic understanding may be defined as a multi-scale description of physical and chemical effects determining fatigue behaviour through the stages of crack nucleation, small crack (Stage I) growth and the transition to long crack (Stage II) growth. A review of literature related to mechanistic understanding of Environmental Fatigue initiation in nuclear plant materials in air and PWR primary coolant environments has been carried out. Detailed findings of that review are not presented here; however, high level conclusions are discussed. It was found that very little literature specific to these combinations of material and environment is available, although there exists a substantial body of work related to generic mechanistic understanding of fatigue and environmental effects in metallic materials. Based on the conclusions of this literature review, a strategy for improvement of mechanistic understanding of Environmental Fatigue initiation has been developed by Rolls-Royce. This strategy is based around three strands of work: metallurgical investigation; numerical modelling; and laboratory testing. Improvements in mechanistic understanding of Environmental Fatigue initiation offer significant opportunities for collaboration between interested parties. Indeed, attainment of a well-developed mechanistic understanding that may be used, in combination with empirical understanding, to inform advances in fatigue analysis methods is likely to be achievable only through collaborative effort.
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