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Title: Creep cavitation in 304 stainless steel

Journal Article · · Acta Metall.; (United States)

Creep cavitation in 304 stainless steel at 0.5 T/sub m/ was investigated. Two specially developed techniques were used to study the nucleation and growth of grain-boundary cavities. It was found that cavities nucleated heterogeneously throughout the creep history and those observed were well in their growth stage. Comparison of these observations with the theory for cavity nucleation requires that a high interfacial stress be present. Experiments suggest that such stress concentrations are present in the early stages of boundary sliding, and in additional transients associated with intermittent sliding of boundaries throughout the creep life. It was found that microstructural variations such as those caused by twins which strongly affect initial particle densities on boundaries can alter cavitation behavior drastically. Our results also show that wedge cracks are the result of accelerated linking of growing cavities in the triple point region of stress concentration and are not a separate phenomenon. Furthermore, at higher strain rates growth of cavities can be accelerated by grain boundary sliding. Lastly, evidence is given to support the view that in engineering alloys which contain complex phas constitutents particularly along grain-boundaries, cavitation in long term service is likely to be caused by cavities nucleated in connection with a prior cold forming operation. 15 figures.

Research Organization:
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
OSTI ID:
6453117
Journal Information:
Acta Metall.; (United States), Vol. 29
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English