Design-, operation-, and inspection-relevant factors of fatigue crack growth rates for pressure vessel and piping steels

Fatigue crack growth rates for nuclear reactor vessel steels are determined. A test program was set up to determine the influence of waveform, temperature, and load ratio on a single pressure vessel steel A508-2. A second program determined the fatigue crack growth rate for a wide variety of reactor pressure steels, welds, and heat affected areas. Ramp time, hold time, and temperature are found to strongly influence the crack growth rates of A508-2 steel. Load ratio effect, waveform effect, and sulfur content effect are strong external influences on the main matrix data. Data for both radiated and unradiated steels is measured according to 1980 code default lines