Thermal-mechanical fatigue behaviour and life prediction of P92 steel, including average temperature and dwell effects

Abstract

This study was devoted to an investigation of the effects of the average temperature and dwell on the thermal-mechanical fatigue (TMF) behaviour of P92 steel at elevated temperatures in the range of 350–650 °C. The results revealed that increased average temperature decreased the in-phase TMF (IPTMF), out-of-phase TMF (OPTMF), and isothermal fatigue (IF) life values, and its effect was more significant in the range of 400–450 °C. The effect of a short dwell time on the IPTMF life was dependent on the form of dwell, because tensile dwell decreased the IPTMF life and symmetric dwell increased the IPTMF life. Both creep stress relaxation (CSR) and dynamic strain ageing (DSA) were detected under IPTMF cycling. The application of dwell enhanced the CSR phenomenon. In contrast, the DSA effect was restrained, which was beneficial for fatigue resistance. The appearance of crack tip blunting and crack branching because of symmetric dwell indicated the retardation of crack propagation under the combined effects of enhanced CSR and the disappearance of the DSA phenomenon. In all cases, the transformation of lath structures into substructures was the dominant deformation mechanism. In addition, the equiaxial subgrain grew with increases in the strain amplitude and dwell time. Finally, the application of the current life models to P92 steel fatigue life prediction under both IF and TMF cycling were evaluated. Because of the insufficiency of the current models, a modified Coffin–Manson model is proposed by incorporating the mean stress and temperature into power law forms. Keywords: Thermal-mechanical fatigue, Creep stress relaxation, Dynamic strain ageing, Fatigue life prediction