The effect of environment on the creep deformation of ultra-high purity nickel-chromium-iron alloys at 360 degrees Celcius

Steam generators in pressurized water nuclear power plants have experienced significant problems with intergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC) on the inner diameter of steam generator tubing for over 25 years. In the course of research to understand IGSCC, it has been shown that creep deformation may play a significant role in the cracking of commercial Alloy 600 (Ni-16Cr-9Fe-0.03C). The primary water environment can cause decreases in creep resistance (i.e., faster creep rates, shorter time to failure, and higher creep strains). During corrosion under the conditions of interest, both hydrogen reduction and metal dissolution occur. One or both may contribute to the enhancement of creep. The purpose of this work was to isolate the mechanism by which the water environment causes the creep deformation to increase.; Activation area and activation enthalpy for glide were measured in argon and primary water on high purity Ni-16Cr-9Fe alloys. The results indicated that the activation area was reduced by primary water, consistent with a hydrogen enhanced plasticity mechanism for enhanced creep. The stress dependence of creep was also examined in argon and primary water. The results indicated that the internal stress of the alloy is reduced by the primary water environment. Lower internal stress is consistent with both a hydrogen model as well as a vacancy-aided climb model for enhanced creep.; To isolate the effect of hydrogen on the creep of the alloy, experiments were conducted in a dissociated hydrogen environment. The results indicated that hydrogen would only increase the steady state creep rate if present before loading of the samples. However, if the sample was already in steady state creep and hydrogen introduced, a transient in the creep strain was observed. The creep rate returned to the original steady state rate in a short time. The results indicate that while hydrogen does affect the steady state creep to an extent, hydrogen cannot completely account for the increase in creep rate observed in primary water. Also, the presence of the aggressive environment before loading appears to be required to increase the creep rate, indicating that the effect of environment may be significant in the primary creep regime.