Abstract
Low-cycle environmental fatigue tests of cast austenitic stainless steel CF8M at the condition of fatigue strain rate 0.04%/sec were conducted at the pressure and temperature, 15MPa, $315^{\circ}C$ of a operating pressurized water reactor. The used test rig was limited to install an extensometer at the gauge length of the cylindrical fatigue specimen inside the small autoclave. So the magnet type LVDT's were used to measure the fatigue displacement at the specimen shoulders inside the high temperature and high pressure water autoclave. However, the displacement and strain measured at the specimen shoulders is different from the one at the gauge length for the geometry and the cyclic strain hardening effect. FEM calculated the displacement and the strain of the gauge length from the data measured at the shoulders. Tensile test properties in elastic and plastic behavior of CF8M material were used in the FEM analysis. A series of low cycle fatigue tests simulating the cyclic strain hardening effect verified that the FEM calculation was well agreed with the simulated tests. The process and method developed in this study would be so useful to produce reliable environmental fatigue curves of CF8M stainless steel in pressurized water reactors.
