On High-Temperature Behaviours of Heat Resistant Austenitic Alloys
About this ebook
Today, some austenitic stainless steels are design to withstand temperatures up to 650 °C in tough environments. Nickel-based alloys are designed to withstand even higher temperatures. Austenitic stainless steels are more cost effective than nickel-based alloys due to a lower amount of expensive alloying elements. However, the performance of austenitic stainless steels at the elevated temperatures of future operation conditions in biomass-red power plants is not yet fully understood.
This thesis presents research on the influence of long term high-temperature ageing on mechanical properties, the influence of very slow deformation rates at high-temperature on deformation, damage and fracture, and the influence of high-temperature environment and cyclic operation conditions on the material behaviour. Mechanical and thermal testing have been performed followed by subsequent studies of the microstructure, using scanning electron microscopy, to investigate the material behaviours.
Results shows that long term ageing at high temperatures leads to the precipitation of intermetallic phases. These intermetallic phases are brittle at room temperature and become detrimental for the impact toughness of some of the austenitic stainless steels. During slow strain rate tensile deformation at elevated temperature time dependent deformation and recovery mechanisms are pronounced. The creep-fatigue interaction behaviour of an austenitic stainless steel show that dwell time gives shorter life at a lower strain range, but has none or small effect on the life at a higher strain range.
Finally, this research results in an increased knowledge of the structural, mechanical and chemical behaviour as well as a deeper understanding of the deformation, damage and fracture mechanisms that occur in heat resistant austenitic alloys at high-temperature environments. It is believed that in the long term, this can contribute to material development achieving the transition to more sustainable power generation in biomass-red power plants.
