Influences on the thermomechanical fatigue crack growth of the nickel alloy 617

The following contribution deals with the experimental investigation and theoretical evaluation of fatigue crack growth under isothermal and non-isothermal conditions at the nickel alloy 617. The microstructure and mechanical properties of alloy 617 are influenced significantly by the thermal heat treatment and the following thermal exposure in service. Hence, a solution annealed and a long-time service exposed material condition is studied. The crack growth measurement is carried out by using an alternate current potential drop system, which is integrated into a thermomechanical fatigue (TMF) test facility. The measured fatigue crack growth rates results in a function of material condition, temperature and load waveform. Furthermore, the results of the non-isothermal tests depend on the phase between thermal and mechanical load (in-phase, out-of-phase). A fracture mechanic based, time dependent model is upgraded by an approach to consider environmental effects, where almost all model parameters represent directly measureable values. A consistent description of all results and a good correlation with the experimental data can be achieved.