Investigation of Dynamic Strain Ageing Effects of Low Alloy Steels 15Kh2MFA and 15Kh2NMFA

The paper summarizes results of tensile tests in low alloy steel (LAS) specimens (steels 15Kh2MFA and 15Kh2NMFA). Slow Strain Rate Tensile tests (SSRT) were performed in air at temperatures from 22 to 325°C over a wide range of strain rates from 2.5×10-6 to 1.67×10-3 s-1. The possible effect of strain rate and temperature to mechanical properties of tested LAS is searched for. The dynamic strain ageing (DSA) was observed within certain temperature ranges at lower strain rates tested and its hardening effect in terms of the maximum strengthening stress decreased linearly with the increase of log strain rate. It has been found that the occurrence of susceptibility to environmentally assisted cracking (EAC) of tested steels in high temperature water (HTW) is corelated to the DSA behavior. The result suggest that DSA reduces ductility of reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steel and its role in enhancing the EAC of RPV steels should not be neglected, in view of the coincidence with susceptibility zones for DSA and EAC in terms of strain rate and temperature. A reasonable coincidence was observed between the susceptibility to DSA exhibited by SSRT in air and with the EAC behavior observed in laboratory experiments.