Fatigue crack analysis of EBR-II Ni-bonded duplex tubing

Small, notched three-point bend specimens machined from duplex tubes, which were extracted from an EBR-II superheater, were fatigued through the nickel interlayer to determine propensity for crack arrest within this interlayer. Several of these specimens were fatigued in the near threshold, and steady state regimes of Paris Law behavior. Additionally, two specimens were fatigued to the edge of the nickel interlayer and then monotonically loaded. Micro-hardness profiles of the nickel interlayer were also measured. Fatigue behavior was found to be similar to previous studies in that arrest was only noted in the near threshold Paris regime (attributed to the presence of voids) and in the steady state regime exhibited an acceleration of crack growth rate through the nickel interlayer followed by a slight retardation. Monotonic loading resulted in crack branching or delamination along the interlayer. Although archival material was not available for this study, the hardness of the nickel interlayer was determined to have been lowered slightly during service by comparison to the expected hardness of a similar nickel braze prepared as specified for fabrication of these tubes.