An Interpretation of Axial Creep-Fatigue Damage Interaction in Type 316 Stainless Steel (Survey Paper)

Creep-fatigue interaction and its effect on damage of components in service have been a major concern to analysts. To deal with this problem, several criteria have been proposed and used, such as: cycle-time fraction summation rule, strain limit, fracture maps where damage mechanisms are based on crack initiation or propagation, and ductility exhaustion. These concepts are reviewed in this paper so that one can interpret the damage mechanisms caused by creep and by fatigue. If a long period of dwell-time at elevated temperature is imposed on a component under strain conditions, stress relaxation occurs. Relaxation data can be used, for example, in austenitic steels, in predicting creep stages; however, interpretation of data obtained from such tests could be misleading in assessing damage. An example is given for life prediction on the basis of two selected criteria: the fraction rule and ductility exhaustion.