Fatigue damage evaluation of a power plant component from analysis of the dislocation structures

Abstract

The paper presents a method for estimating the degree of fatigue damage in an engineering ferritic–bainitic steel. A dislocation microstructure chart is first established from laboratory fatigue tests. Misorientation measurements are carried out after fatigue failure between dislocation cells produced by cyclic loading in ferrite grains and between dislocation cells in bainite originated by the heat treatment. There is shown to be a clear dependence of these values on the strain amplitude. On this basis, the analysis of the microstructure of a steel taken from a component which failed in service allowed the determination of the strain amplitude value to which the component had been subjected.