Corrosion Fatigue Crack Growth Studies on Pressure Vessel and Piping Steels in Water Environment

Corrosion fatigue crack growth studies were conducted on eccentrically-loaded single edge notch tension specimens made of SA 333 Gr. 6 and SA 516 Gr. 70 carbon steels in water environment. The experiments were conducted using a ±250 kN capacity Universal Testing Machine under constant amplitude sinusoidal loading at a test frequency of 0.50 Hz and stress ratio of 0.1. The fabrication of test specimens and the experiments were carried out based on ASTM E 647 and ASTM E 1820. The crack initiation and growth were monitored and images were captured by using a digital camera at regular intervals of fatigue cycles. By using these images, the length of crack was measured. The tests were terminated when the uncracked portion of the specimens was insufficient to take further load. Crack growth rate and stress intensity factor range values were evaluated at incremental values of loading cycles and crack length. Using the crack growth rate vs. stress intensity factor range plots, best fit curves following power law in the form of Paris’ equation were obtained.