Thermal fatigue loading for a type 304-L stainless steel used for pressure water reactor: investigations on the effect of a nearly perfect biaxial loading, and on the cumulative fatigue life

Fatigue-life curves are used in order to estimate crack-initiation, and also to prevent water leakage on Pressure Water Reactor pipes. Such curves are built exclusively from push-pull tests performed under constant and uniaxial strain or stress-amplitude. However, thermal fatigue corresponds to a nearly perfect biaxial stress state and severe loading fluctuations are observed in operating conditions. In this frame, these two aspects have been successively investigated in this paper: In order to investigate on potential difference between thermal fatigue and mechanical fatigue, tests have been carried out at CEA using thermal fatigue devices. They show that for an identical level of strain-amplitude, the number of cycles required to achieve crack-initiation is significantly lower under thermal fatigue. This enhanced damage results probably from a perfect biaxial state under thermal fatigue. In this frame, application of the multiaxial Zamrik's criterion seems to be very promising. In order to investigate on cumulative damage effect in fatigue, multi-level strain controlled fatigue tests have been performed. Experimental results show that linear Miner's rule is not verified. A loading sequence effect is clearly evidenced. The double linear damage rule ("DLDR") improves significantly predictions of fatigue-life. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.