Effect of grain refinement on dynamic strain aging in SUS304L stainless steel under high temperature pressurized water

Hirota, Noriaki   ; Kondo, Keietsu  ; Nakano, Hiroko  ; Fujita, Yoshitaka   ; Takeuchi, Tomoaki   ; Ide, Hiroshi  ; Tsuchiya, Kunihiko ; Kobayashi, Yoshinao*

Dynamic strain aging (DSA) has been identified in shrouds of boiling water reactors and recirculation system piping of pressurized water reactors in the nuclear field. This phenomenon increases the work hardening rate of the material and causes a reduction in ductility. Rodriguez reported that using stainless steel, this work hardening increases with grain refinement, making DSA more likely to occur. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of grain refinement on DSA in a high temperature pressurized water (HTPW) simulating nuclear reactor environment utilizing ultrafine grained SUS304L (UFGS). UFGS was heat treated to adjust the grain size from 0.59 m to 68.6 m, and Hall-Petch relationship for 0.2 % yield stress was arranged. The k values obtained in this study were almost the same as the reference values previously obtained for SUS304L. Regarding the effect of grain size on fracture strain, a comparison of fracture strain between tensile test under air and slow strain rate test (SSRT) under 598 K / 15 MPa at dissolved oxygen 1 ppb showed that the fracture strain was lower than that under air as the grain size became coarser. The micrograph after fracture in a HTPW showed that ductile fracture surfaces were observed for materials with grain sizes less than 28.4 m. However, when the grain size coarsened to 68.6 m, more than half of all fracture surfaces were brittle fractured. For the material with a grain size of 0.59 m under HTPW, many correspondence grain boundaries of {111}/3 boundaries were observed in the fracture cross-section of the sample. But these distributions were rarely observed when the grain size was coarsened to 68.6 m. Therefore, the suppression of crack propagation by DSA to the fine grains in a HTPW can be attributed to the relaxation of dislocation accumulation by the {111}/3 boundaries.