Low-cycle fatigue of piping and pressure vessel steels in LWR environments

The ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code provides rules for the construction of nuclear power plant components. Figure I-90 of Appendix I to Section III of the Code specifies fatigue design curves for structural materials. Although effects of reactor coolant environments are not explicitly addressed by the design curves, test data suggest that the Code fatigue curves may not always be adequate in coolant environments. This paper reports the results of recent fatigue tests that examine the effects of steel type, strain rate, dissolved oxygen level, strain range, loading waveform, and surface morphology on the fatigue life of carbon and low-alloy steels in light water reactor environments. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.