An assessment of the fracture toughness of two cast and wrought stainless steels

Abstract

The crack-tip displacement concept has been applied to austenitic steels at 25°C and in the temperature range 400-800°C. The measurement of a maximum load crack-tip displacement in a notch bend test, provided a good indication of fracture-toughness since it included a portion of slot: crack-growth. The ability of these alloys to tolerate slow crack-growth, and even to arrest cracks without becoming unstable, is of considerable engineering importance since many service failures originate at stress concentrations produced by welding of poor design. Slow crack-growth was intermittent and highly dependent upon microstructural irregularities in the immediate vicinity of the crack-tip. The stress concentration at the crack-tip could be relieved (and the fracture-toughness improved) by localized plastic deformation. The degree of stress relief depended upon the locality and proximity of the various microstructural features as determined by the alloy manufacturing process. The temperature sensitivity of the bond strengths of the various interfaces particularly in cast alloys, had a marked-effect on fracture-toughness. This may have been the result of segregation of trace elements e.g. lead to the interface. Above the equicohesive temperature, the greatest contribution to fracture-toughness was associated with the presence of large amounts of second phase particles in the boundaries. In many cases, and particularly cast alloys, more than one crack formed at the notch root. Only one of these cracks propagated to failure. Heterogeneous cracking of this kind (itself an indication of fracture-toughness), lead to difficulties in correlating an initiation C. O. D. with the macroscopic plastic properties of the material. Similar correlations were however possible with the maximum load crack opening displacement.