Creep, fatigue, and creep-fatigue crack growth behaviours of P92 steel at 600 °C

High-temperature components in power generation plant are exposed to creep, fatigue, and creep-fatigue environment during service. The components are usually under multiaxial state of stress condition. Understanding how the material behaves under these loading and environment is essential in order to sustain and keep the plant safe. The present paper aims to investigate the creep rupture and crack growth behaviours of P92 steel at 600 °C. For creep rupture test, notched bars with two different notch radii were prepared and tested under creep condition between 250 and 3500 hours at 600 °C, while the C-shaped specimen was prepared for fatigue and creep-fatigue crack growth tests. The material tested under creep condition showed notch strengthening effect where the life of notched bar specimen increased compared to smooth specimens when the net stress against creep time data was plotted. The effect was more significant as the notch radius decreased. It was also observed that the rupture life of all specimens was von-Mises stress controlled. Based on the fatigue test, it was found that the frequency in a range of 0.1 Hz–10 Hz was insignificantly affecting the crack growth rate. Under creep-fatigue, however, the material showed frequency-dependent behaviour. Observation on the fracture surface revealed that the ductile dimple associated with plasticity was dominant for all creep specimens. In addition, frequency independent specimen was associated with the transgranular fracture, thus flat appearance was evident, while fracture surface of frequency dependent specimen was roughly associated with intergranular fracture.