Role of carbides in stress corrosion cracking resistance of alloy 600 and controlled-purity Ni-16% Cr-9% Fe in primary water at 360°C

Intergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC) of two commercial alloy 600 (UNS N06600) conditions (heat-treated at low temperature [600LT] and at high temperature [600HT]) and two controlled-purity Ni-16% Cr-9% Fe alloys (carbon-doped mill-annealed [CDMA] and carbon-doped thermally treated [CDTT]) were investigated using constant extension rate tensile (CERT) tests in primary water (0.001 M lithium hydroxide [LiOH] + 0.01 M boric acid [H3BO3]) with 1 bar (100 kPa) hydrogen overpressure at 360 degrees C and 320 degrees C. Heat treatments produced two types of microstructures in the commercial and controlled-purity alloys: one dominated by grain-boundary carbides (600HT and CDTT) and one dominated by intragranular carbides (600LT and CDMA). CERT tests were conducted over a range of strain rates and at two temperatures with interruptions at specific strains to determine the crack depth distributions. Results showed IGSCC was the dominant failure mode in all samples. For the commercial alloy and controlled-purity alloys, the microstructure with grain-boundary carbides showed delayed crack initiation and shallower crack depths than did the intragranular carbide microstructure under all experimental conditions. Data indicated a grain-boundary carbide microstructure is more resistant to IGSCC than an intragranular carbide microstructure. Observations supported the film rupture/slip dissolution mechanism and enhanced localized plasticity. The advantage of these results over previous studies was that the different carbide distributions were obtained in the same commercial alloy using different heat treatments and, in the other case, in nearly identical controlled-purity alloys. Observations of the effects of carbide distribution on IGSCC could be attributed more confidently to the carbide distribution alone rather than other potentially significant differences in microstructure or composition. Crack growth rates (CGR) increased with increasing strain rate according to a power law relation with a strain rate exponent between 0.4 and 0.64. However, CGR measured in m/unit strain decreased with increasing strain rate, indicating an effect of environment or creep. Temperature dependence of CGR was consistent with the literature.