Fatigue Life Predictions for Irradiated Stainless Steels

Fuller, R. W., & Shamsaei, N. (2015). Fatigue Life Predictions for Irradiated Stainless Steels. 2015 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition. Orlando, FL: TMS.

Abstract

Reactor internal components in the nuclear industry are typically made of stainless steels. These components are exposed to radiation being situated next to the core. With nuclear power plants extending the life of the reactor vessel internals, the effects of irradiation on the fatigue behavior of core internals needs to be fully investigated. In this study, the ultimate strength and hardness are approximated based on the radiation fluence for stainless steels. Bäumel-Seeger Universal Materials law and Roessle-Fatemi Hardness method are then used to predict fatigue lives of irradiated stainless steels based on ultimate strength and hardness. The predictions are compared with experimental results from literature for Stainless Steels 304, 304L and 316. Predicted fatigue lives only based on dose in displacements per atom are in good agreement with experimentally observed fatigue lives.