The fatigue life of carbon and low alloy steels decreases with reduction in strain rate in high temperature water such as in the case of a light water reactor coolant. The fatigue life reduction also depends on temperature and dissolved oxygen. The fatigue life correction factor Fen has been proposed as a method to assess the fatigue life reduction in such environments. Three different models for calculating Fen for carbon and low alloy steels have been proposed by Higuchi et al., Chopra et al., and Mehta. These models were compared using considerable environmental fatigue data that were tested and published in Japan and USA and piled up in the database “JNUFAD” by the author. These models give somewhat different results in the specific conditions and a revised model for calculating Fen is thus proposed by remedying the particular drawbacks of each. In this model, the same formula is used for carbon and low alloy steels and S*,T*,O*, and ε˙* are adopted in the formula after reevaluating every parameter. The revised proposal shows better correlation with the test data than the previous models.

Issue Section:
Research Paper
Keywords:
carbon steel, alloy steel, water, fission reactor coolants, fission reactor materials, fatigue, dissolving, environmental degradation
Topics:
Alloy steel, Carbon, Fatigue, Fatigue life, Oxygen, Sulfur, Temperature, Water, Carbon steel, Light water reactors
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