Heat-to-Heat Variation in Creep Life and Fundamental Creep Rupture Strength of 18Cr-8Ni, 18Cr-12Ni-Mo, 18Cr-10Ni-Ti, and 18Cr-12Ni-Nb Stainless Steels

Abstract

Metallurgical factors causing the heat-to-heat variation in time to rupture have been investigated for 300 series stainless steels for boiler and heat exchanger seamless tubes, 18Cr-8Ni (JIS SUS 304HTB), 18Cr-12Ni-Mo (JIS SUS 316HTB), 18Cr-10Ni-Ti (JIS SUS321 HTB), and 18Cr-12Ni-Nb (JIS SUS 347HTB), at 873 K to 1023 K (600 °C to 750 °C) using creep rupture data for nine heats of the respective steels in the NIMS Creep Data Sheets. The maximum time to rupture was 222,705.3 hours. The heat-to-heat variation in time to rupture of the 304HTB and 316HTB becomes more significant with longer test durations at times above ~10,000 hours at 973 K (700 °C) and reaches to about an order of magnitude difference between the strongest and weakest heats at 100,000 hours, whereas that of the 321HTB and 347HTB is very large of about an order of magnitude difference from a short time of ~100 hours to long times exceeding 100,000 hours at 873 K to 973 K (600 °C to 700 °C). The heat-to-heat variation in time to rupture is mainly explained by the effect of impurities: Al and Ti for the 304HTB and 316HTB, which reduces the concentration of dissolved nitrogen available for the creep strength by the formation of AlN and TiN during creep, and boron for the 347HTB, which enhances fine distributions of M23C6 carbides along grain boundaries. The heat-to-heat variation in time to rupture of the 321HTB is caused by the heat-to-heat variation in grain size, which is inversely proportional to the concentration of Ti. The fundamental creep rupture strength not influenced by impurities is estimated for the steels. The 100,000 hours-fundamental creep rupture strength of the 347HTB steel is lower than that of 304HTB and 316HTB at 873 K and 923 K (600 °C and 650 °C) because the slope of stress vs time to rupture curves is steeper in the 347HTB than in the 304HTB and 316HTB. The 100,000 hours-fundamental creep rupture strength of the 321HTB exhibits large variation depending on grain size.