Small Punch Creep Properties of Welded Joint of High Cr Ferritic Steel

The SP creep test was applied to the fusion zone, CGHAZ, FGHAZ, THAZ and base metal, which were removed from the EB welded joint of the reduced activation high Cr ferritic steel. The finite element analysis was also conducted to investigate the stress and strain distributions in the SP specimen and to correlate the results of the SP creep test and the uniaxial creep one. Experimental results revealed that the creep rupture strength of FGHAZ was lower than those of the other regimes. Additionally, the averaged equivalent Mises stress showed almost no variation at the circumference where the local necking and final fracture occurred. This equivalent stress, sigma(s). increased linearly with increasing applied SP load, P, and they were related by P = 0.46 sigma(s). By arranging the SP creep rupture data with the sigma(s), in place of the P, they are in good agreement with the uniaxial creep data.