Life Prediction of Stainless Steels Used in Nuclear Reactors

Effects of dwell times and temperature on creep-fatigue behavior of stainless steels have been examined from published data. The temperatures of these materials varied from 430°C to 816°C. Within this temperature range creep and fatigue processes interact and failure occurs in the low-cycle regime. A least square best fit equation was developed from the compiled data fitting all the data points. The variables were temperature, strain rate, dwell time and strain range and were used with and without transformation functions to derive the equation. Statistical analysis was performed showing a very high coefficient of correlation value for the life prediction equation derived in this study. It will be further evaluated to predict the new data in the future