FATIGUE CRACK-GROWTH IN REACTOR PRESSURE-VESSEL MATERIALS AND LIGHT WATER-REACTOR ENVIRONMENTS

This paper presents the results of a series of experiments to determine the effect of a number of variables on the environmentally assisted cracking (EAC) tendencies of reactor pressure steels SA508-CL2 and SA533B-1 in light water reactor (LWR) environments. The effects of the sulfur content and sulfide morphology of the material, the loading frequency, the environment (boiling water or pressurized water reactor), the environmental temperature, load (R) ratio, ΔK level, and the oxygen content of the environment on EAC was studied during the course of these experiments. The largest effect in promoting EAC, in both LWR environments, was the sulfur content of the material. The remaining variables, however, all showed significant contributions to EAC. © 1990.