High temperature strength analysis of welded joint of RAF's by small punch test

Full text of publication follows: Nucleation and growth of microvoids and/or small cracks in fine-grained heat affected zone (HAZ) after long-term service operation, which is recognized as Type IV creep damage, has recently been a worldwide issue for high Cr ferritic steels. In our group, a small punch (SP) creep test has been successfully applied to evaluate this damage of low alloy ferritic steel. However, the HAZ of fusion reactor material welded by electron-beam (EB) welding is so narrow that it is not easy to evaluate its mechanical properties by conventional tests including the SP creep test with a plate-type specimen (10 x 10 x 0.5 mm3). In this study, the SP creep test using a further miniaturized specimen was developed and applied to the welded joint of reduced activation ferritic steels (RAFs), F82H-IEA (Fe-8Cr-2W-0.2V-0.02Ta), for measuring creep properties of the HAZ. For the SP creep test, TEM disk-type samples (diam. 3.0 x 0.30 mm) were removed from the base metal (BM), weld metal (WM) and HAZ, respectively. The specimen surfaces were polished up to a 0.05 μm alumina powder finish and the specimen's thickness was finally adjusted to 0.25 mm. The SP creep tests were performed at temperatures of 823∼973 K and under loads ranging from 20 to 200 N. A constant load was applied to the center of the specimen through the Si3N4 bail (diam. 1.0 mm) using the electric servo motor. The central deflection of the specimen was monitored by measuring the displacement of the compression rod. The tests were carried out in an argon gas atmosphere and the gas was continuously passed through during the test to prevent severe oxidation of the specimen. The differences in SP creep properties such as rupture time and minimum creep rate between the BM, WM and HAZ were discussed in terms of microstructural changes during welding thermal cycles. In addition, the result obtained from the BM was correlated with those of uniaxial creep test. (authors)