SUB-SIZED CREEP SPECIMEN TESTING FOR HIGH THROUGHPUT AND POSTIRRADIATION TESTING

Abstract

Testing on small, sub-sized specimens is of interest in cases where material is limited, or where the material/specimens are difficult to handle, as is the case for irradiation experiments. However, it is known that sub-sized specimens are susceptible to error if the specimen size is too small to achieve bulk properties. It is critical that the test results be validated against standard specimens to ensure the results are reasonable and give the desired bulk properties. This will help continue to build a database of test results that can be used to further increase the understanding of applicability and limitations in using small specimen testing. This paper covers the preliminary results of sub-sized creep testing performed at Idaho National Laboratory on Alloy 617 and compares the creep properties to prior data generated for use in the Alloy 617 Code Case. The goal of this testing is to allow for higher throughput generation of creep data that can be used in computational models, and ultimately for material qualification. The preliminary results generally show good agreement between the 1.0 mm thick sub-sized specimens and the standard sized specimen tests, though with larger variation in the results of the thinner specimens. Future work will continue generating creep tests, as well as include more detailed microscopy that will be used to better understand how these tests could be reliably used.