Influence of Stress on Degradation and Life Prediction of High Strength Ferritic Steels

Influence of stress on creep deformation and degradation behavior has been investigated. Corresponding to inflection of stress vs. time to rupture curve, difference in recovery phenomena, that was homogeneous in short-term and inhomogeneous in long-term, was observed. Inflection of stress vs. time to rupture curve took place at the stress condition corresponding to half of 0.2% offset yield stress at the temperature. Elastic limit stress of Grade 91 steel was evaluated to be 150MPa at 600°C and 100MPa at 650°C, by means of stress abrupt change test. These stresses were found to be almost the same as half of 0.2% offset yield stress at the temperatures. Inflection of stress vs. time to rupture curve is caused by transient of applied stress from higher level than elastic limit to within elastic range. It has been concluded that long-term creep strength of ferritic creep resistant steels should be predicted from the selected creep rupture data under the stresses lower than elastic limit by considering half of 0.2% offset yield stress at the temperature, by means of Larson-Miller parameter with a constant of 20.