Stress state dependence of transient irradiation creep in 20% cold worked 316 stainless steel

Irradiation creep tests were performed in fast reactors using the stress states of uniaxial tension, biaxial tension, bending and torsion. In order to compare the saturated transient strain irradiation creep component, the test data were converted to equivalent strain and equivalent stress. The saturated transient irradiation creep component was observed to depend on the stress state. The highest value was exhibited by the uniaxial tension stress state, and the lowest by the torsion stress state. The biaxial tension and bending stress state transient component values were intermediate. This behavior appears to be related to the dislocation or microscopic substructure resulting from fabrication processing and the applied stress direction. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.