On the simulation of the small punch creep test—applied to 316L(N) austentic steels

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper describes a numerical analysis to predict the deformation and time to rupture of the small punch creep test for 316 L(N) austenitic steel. The constitutive model incorporates elasto-plastic nonlinear kinematic hardening and creep with primary, secondary and tertiary creep calibrated to the RCC-MRx code data. The computations are assessed by comparing with experimental data for a 500 µm thick sample clamped with a diameter of 5 mm loaded with a force 300,400 and 500N at 700°C. The model predicts the experimental observations quite well with respect to minimum deflection rate and time to rupture and its location using a local critical strain criterion. A very important feature is that the deformation and total effective strain distribution at rupture are almost identical for all loads as function of the time divided by the time to rupture.