Fatigue Crack Growth Behavior of Alloy 800H at Elevated Temperature

High temperature crack growth behavior is investigated over a wide range of R-ratios, frequencies, and temperatures in Alloy 800H. It is found that high R-ratio, low frequency, or high temperature can enhance creep damage and thus induce an intergranular crack growth mode. At low frequencies, the nonlinear fracture mechanics parameter, C*, is found to correlate time-dependent fatigue crack growth rate well if the applied mean stress is used in calculating C*. On the other hand, the Paris crack growth law using K_eff is proven to be an adequate expression to use when fatigue (time-independent) damage dominates. These conclusions correlate well with damage mechanisms observed from sample fracture surfaces.