Understanding Low Cycle Fatigue Behavior of Alloy 617 Base Metal and Weldments at 900 °C

In order to better understand the high temperature low cycle fatigue behavior of Alloy 617 weldments, this work focuses on the comparative study of the low cycle fatigue behavior of Alloy 617 base metal and weldments, made from automated gas tungsten arc welding with Alloy 617 filler wire. Low cycle fatigue tests were carried out by a series of fully reversed strain-controls (strain ratio, R-epsilon = -1), i.e., 0.6%, 0.9%, 1.2% and 1.5% at a high temperature of 900 degrees C and a constant strain rate of 10(-3)/s. At all the testing conditions, the weldment specimens showed lower fatigue lives compared with the base metal due to their microstructural heterogeneities. The effect of very high temperature deformation behavior regarding cyclic stress response varied as a complex function of material property and total strain range. The Alloy 617 base weldments showed some cyclic hardening as a function of total strain range. However, the Alloy 617 base metal showed some cyclic softening induced by solute drag creep during low cycle fatigue. An analysis of the low cycle fatigue data based on a Coffin-Manson relationship was carried out. Fracture surface characterizations were performed on selected fractured specimens using standard metallographic techniques.