Establishing a multi-laboratory test plan for environmentally assisted fatigue

The European project INCEFA+ will characterize environmental fatigue in pressurized water reactor (PWR) conditions. The aim is to develop new guidelines for assessing environmental fatigue damage susceptibility of nuclear power plant (NPP) components. The consortium consists of 16 public and private organizations from across Europe. The project is structured in two phases: the first phase is an extensive fatigue testing program; in the second phase a procedure for estimating the environmental fatigue degradation of the materials will be formulated. During the test phase a selection of austenitic stainless steels employed in NPPs will be characterized with regard to fatigue. The test matrix will focus on the effects of mean strain, strain amplitude, hold time periods and surface roughness on fatigue life. Sensitivities to these parameters will be tested in PWR environments with additional tests in air for reference purposes. Especially the study of hold time effects will lead to very long testing times limiting the total number of tests. It is therefore crucial to establish a test matrix that allows studying the principal effects of interest while taking into account the nuisance effects like different specimen geometries, particular material microstructures, and other laboratory dependent factors that may not be well controlled. Methods and considerations for establishing a single test matrix are presented in this work.

MOTTERSHEAD Kevin;  HURLEY Caitlin;  MÉTAIS Thomas;  CICERO Roman;  VANKEERBERGHEN Marc;  LE ROUX Jean-Christophe; 

BRUCHHAUSEN Matthias; 

2017-07-31

ASTM International

JRC100694

https://www.astm.org/DIGITAL_LIBRARY/STP/PAGES/STP159820160047.htm,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC100694,   

10.1520/STP159820160047,