Abstract
The fatigue behavior of reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels during fatigue testing was monitored by an advanced, high-speed, high-sensitivity, nondestructive evaluation (NDE) technique called infrared (IR) thermography. Five stages of temperature profiles during fatigue were recorded: an initial increase of the mean specimen temperature followed by a temperature decrease, a constant (equilibrium) temperature region, an abrupt temperature increase, and a temperature drop after the specimen failure. Using the state-of-the-art IR camera, the temperature profiles were recorded cycle by cycle during 20 Hz fatigue testing. A theoretical model combining the thermoelastic, inelastic, and heat-conduction effects were used to explain and predict the temperature evolution during fatigue. Specifically, the temperature evolution was predicted, and the results were found to be in good agreement with the experimental data.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 131-139 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Materials Science and Engineering: A |
| Volume | 314 |
| Issue number | 1-2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 15 2001 |
Funding
This project is supported by the Taiwan Power Company. We would also like to acknowledge the financial support of the National Science Foundation (DMI-9724476, EEC-9527527, and DGE-9987548) with Dr D. R. Durham, Ms. M. F. Poats, and Dr W. Jennings, as contract monitors, respectively. A portion of the work was sponsored by the the US Department of Energy Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Transportation Technologies, as part of the High Temperature Materials Laboratory User Program under contract DE-AC05-960R22464, managed by the Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation. We would like to greatly acknowledge Dr C. R. Hubbard and Dr A. E. Pasto of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for their critical comments on the paper. We would also like to thank Dr R. B. Dinwiddie of ORNL for his encouragement. We are grateful to D. Fielden and G. Jones for their great help on the experiments at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.