Influence of localized plasticity on oxidation behaviour of austenitic stainless steels under primary water reactor

Sarata Cissé (1) , Lydia Laffont-Dantras (2) , Marie-Christine Lafont (2) , Benoit Tanguy (1) , Eric Andrieu (2)

1 DMN - Département des Matériaux pour le Nucléaire
2 CIRIMAT - Centre interuniversitaire de recherche et d'ingenierie des matériaux

The sensitivity of precipitation-strengthened A286 austenitic stainless steel to stress corrosion cracking was studied by means of slow-strain-rate tests. First, alloy cold working by low cycle fatigue (LCF) was investigated. Fatigue tests under plastic strain control were performed at different strain levels (Δεp/2 = 0.2%, 0.5%, 0.8% and 2%) to establish correlations between stress softening and the deformation microstructure resulting from the LCF tests. Deformed microstructures were identified through TEM investigations. The interaction between oxidation and localized deformation bands was also studied and it resulted that localized deformation bands are not preferential oxide growth channels. The pre-cycling of the alloy did not modify its oxidation behaviour. However, intergranular oxidation in the subsurface under the oxide layer formed after exposure to PWR primary water was shown.

Mots clés: Austenitic stainless steel; PWR; Oxidation; TEM

Domaines: Mécanique des matériaux [physics.class-ph]; Matériaux

Sarata Cissé, Lydia Laffont-Dantras, Marie-Christine Lafont, Benoit Tanguy, Eric Andrieu. Influence of localized plasticity on oxidation behaviour of austenitic stainless steels under primary water reactor. Journal of Nuclear Materials, 2013, vol. 433 (n° 1-3), pp. 319-328. ⟨10.1016/j.jnucmat.2012.09.020⟩. ⟨hal-01218526⟩