Thermal-mechanical Fatigue Life Prediction of 12Cr Forged Steel Using Strain Range Partitioning method

변형률분할법에 의한 12Cr 단조강의 열피로 수명예측

Fatigue behavior and life prediction were presented for thermal-mechanical and isothermal low cycle fatigue of 12Cr forged steel used for high temperature applications. In-phase and out-of-phase thermal-mechanical fatigue test at 350 to 600.deg. C and isothermal low cycle fatigue test at 600.deg. C were conducted using smooth cylindrical hollow specimen under strain-control with total strain ranges from 0.006 to 0.015. Cyclic softening behavior was observed regardless of thermal-mechanical and isothermal fatigue tests. The phase difference between temperature and strain in thermal-mechanical fatigue resulted in significantly shorter fatigue life for out-of-phase than for in-phase. The difference in fatigue lives was dependent upon the magnitudes of inelastic strain ranges and mean stresses. Increase in inelastic strain range showed a tendency of intergranular cracking and decrease in fatigue life, especially for out-of-phase thermal-mechanical fatigue. Thermal-mechanical fatigue life prediction was made by partitioning the strain ranges of the hysteresis loops and the results of isothermal low cycle fatigue tests which were performed under the combination of slow and fast strain rates. Predicted fatigue lives for out-of-phase using the strain range partitioning method showed an excellent agreement with the actual out-of-phase thermal-mechanical fatigue lives within a factor of 1.5. Conventional strain range partitioning method exhibited a poor accuracy in the prediction of in-phase thermal-mechanical fatigue lives, which was quite improved conservatively by a proposed strain range partitioning method.