| METALS AND METAL MATRIX COMPOSITES |
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| Study on Fatigue Cracking Mechanism and Temperature Sensitivity of 316H Austenitic Stainless Steel |
| DONG Hezhan1, YU Ting1, SONG Yuxuan1,2,*, WANG Zhiqiang1, CAI Zhihui4, JIN Weiya1,2,3, JIANG Yanyao1,2, GAO Zengliang1,2,3,*
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1 Institute of Process Equipment and Control Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China
2 Institute of Innovation Research of Shengzhou and Zhejiang University of Technology, Shengzhou 312400, Zhejiang, China
3 Engineering Research Center of Process Equipment and Re-manufacturing Ministry of Education, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China
4 Special Equipment Testing Science Research Institute, Wenzhou 325038, Zhejiang, China |
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Abstract 316H austenitic stainless steel is one of the candidate materials for the first circuit piping in the high temperature gas-cooled reactors of Gene-ration IV nuclear power plants by virtue of its excellent high temperature performance. However, unexpected fatigue cracking occurs inits structural components at high temperatures, and there is an urgent need to understand the fatigue failure mechanism. In the current research, tensile experiments of 316H stainless steel at different temperatures were carried out. It was found that the yield strength and the ultimate strength gradually decrease with the increase in temperature, while the elongation decreases with increasing temperature in the range from room temperature to 300 ℃. A plateau appears in the range of 300 ℃ to 550 ℃, and the elongation increases with the increase of the test temperature above 550 ℃. By carrying out low frequency fatigue experiments of the material at room temperature and at the gas-cooled reactor service temperature of 600 ℃, the cyclic stress-strain characteristics and the S-N curves at both temperatures were obtained. The microstructural evolution under static tension and low cycle fatigue and the fracture profiles of the tested specimens were analyzed by micro characterization techniques, and the fracture mechanism was studied. The results show that the structure of the grain boundary is stable below 300 ℃, and fatigue cracking is mainly due to transgranular fracture; while precipitates appear in the grain boundaries above 550 ℃ and the tensile fracture shows a characteristic of partial intergranular fracture. At both room and high temperatures, the material exhibits three distinct cyclic stages: cyclic hardening, cyclic softening, and rapid failure. Post-fatigue characterization reveals significant grain coarsening at high temperature, whereas at room temperature, the grain size remains stable while the geometrically necessary dislocation (GND) density increases markedly. Furthermore, the fatigue crack initiation mechanisms differ: at room temperature, cracks originate from the surface due to slip-band accumulation; in contrast, at high temperature, the initiation sites suffer from severe oxidation, manifesting a fatigue-oxidation synergistic initiation characteristic.
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Published: 25 January 2026
Online: 2026-01-27
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2026, Vol. 40 
