Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics xxx (2017) xxxxxx

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Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics

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Basic modelling of creep rupture in austenitic stainless steels

Junjing He , Rolf Sandstrm
Materials Science and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Creep rupture can happen in two ways, brittle and ductile creep rupture. Brittle creep rupture of auste-
Received 10 October 2016 nitic stainless steels proceeds with the nucleation, growth and coalescence of grain boundary cavities. A
Revised 31 January 2017 creep cavity nucleation model has been developed previously, which considers cavity nucleation at par-
Accepted 12 February 2017
ticles and sub-boundary corners due to grain boundary sliding. A modified constrained cavity growth
Available online xxxx
model has been used to describe the cavity growth behavior with combination of the cavity nucleation
models. In this paper, the brittle creep rupture has been analyzed by combining the cavity nucleation
Keywords:
and growth models. The physically based models where no adjustable parameters were involved were
Creep cavitation
Brittle creep rupture
used to predict the brittle creep rupture strength. On the other hand, previously developed basic models
Ductile creep rupture for ductile creep rupture based on exhaustion of the creep ductility have been used. The creep rupture
Creep rupture strength strength of common austenitic stainless steels has been predicted quantitatively by taking both ductile
Austenitic stainless steels and brittle rupture into account. The predicted rupture times for ductile rupture are longer than those
for brittle rupture at high stresses and low temperatures with a reversed situation at low stresses and
high temperatures. This reproduces the characteristic change in slope in the creep rupture curves.
2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction formation of creep cavities, experimentally it has been observed

By increasing the operating temperature and stress, the effi-
ciency of fossil fuel fired power plants can be improved. At the
same time CO2 emission and other environment pollutions can
be reduced significantly by increasing the steam temperature from
550 C to 700750 C [1,2]. However, the life of components in the
high temperature and stress condition is limited by the properties
of the materials, especially creep strength and oxidation resistance.
Austenitic stainless steels are important candidate materials for
these increased operation temperatures. Thus, it is critical to
understand the failure mechanisms in these steels when they serve
at high temperatures.
In general there are two failure modes of materials at high tem-
peratures, intergranular fracture and transgranular fracture. Inter-
granular fracture can be a result of creep cavitation at grain
boundaries. Brittle rupture due to creep cavitation proceeds with
the formation, growth and coalescence of creep cavities along grain
boundaries. Grain boundary sliding (GBS) plays a significant role
for formation of creep cavities. Apart from creep cavitation, GBS
also increases the overall creep rate. It has been shown in [3,4] that
up to 30% increase in the creep rate was predicted due to GBS. Two
GBS models have been presented by He and Sandstrm [5]. For
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: junjing@kth.se (J. He), rsand@kth.se (R. Sandstrm).
that the creep cavity nucleation rate is proportional to the creep
rate. A double ledge model has been proposed [6,7], where cavities
are nucleated when subboundaries on one side of a sliding grain
boundary meet particles or subboundaries on the other side of
the sliding grain boundary. Unlike the classical cavity nucleation
theory, the double ledge model has no incubation time involved
and the threshold stress has found to be well below the applied
stress. Unlike cavity formation, models and mechanisms for creep
cavity growth have been well established. There are two types of
models for creep cavity growth, namely for unconstrained and con-
strained growth [8,9]. Recently a new modified constrained creep
cavity growth model has been proposed by He and Sandstrm
[10], where the affected range of the reduced stress has been sim-
ulated with FEM. Combined with the recently developed models
for cavity nucleation [6], the creep cavity growth behavior has
been predicted quantitatively for different types of austenitic
stainless steels.
With models for formation and growth of creep cavities, it is pos-
sible to predict brittle creep rupture. When the area fraction of the
cavities at grain boundaries reaches a critical value, failure will
occur. Alternatively, the materials can fail in a ductile manner with
transgranular fracture. Dislocation creep is considered as the main
mechanism for ductile rupture, which occurs when the creep strain
reaches a critical value. A fundamental model for dislocation creep
has been developed by Sandstrm [1113] for Cu and austenitic

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Please cite this article in press as: J. He, R. Sandstrm, Basic modelling of creep rupture in austenitic stainless steels, Theor. Appl. Fract. Mech. (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tafmec.2017.02.004
2 J. He, R. Sandstrm / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics xxx (2017) xxxxxx
stainless steels, where no adjustable parameters are used. The role of
plastic deformation on creep rupture has found considerable inter-
est in the literature [14,15]. In [14] a regression analysis between
the strain on loading in creep tests and creep properties of the aus-
tenitic stainless steel 316H was performed. Some correlations
between the stress related to the yield strength and the rupture time
and the stationary creep rate were found. A much more pronounced
correlation was observed to the creep rupture elongation. The rup-
ture ductility was higher when the creep stress exceeded the yield
strength than if it did not. It is well established that the creep ductil-
ity is reduced with increasing cold deformation. However in [14] the
highest ductility was associated with the higher stresses and most
plastic deformation. This is quite a puzzling result and its role with
respect to creep rupture is difficult to interpret.
The main aim of this paper is to present a model for intergran-
ular fracture based on the recently developed creep cavitation
models. A brief summary of models for ductile rupture will be
given. Creep rupture strength of austenitic stainless steels will be
predicted by combinations of ductile and brittle rupture models.
2. Brittle creep rupture
2.1. GBS models
Formation of creep cavities is related to grain boundary sliding
(GBS) [5,6,16]. Thus, before we introduce the cavity nucleation mod-
els, it is necessary to consider GBS first. Two GBS models have been
presented by He and Sandstrm [5] for austenitic stainless steels,
where the GBS displacement rate (speed) vsd is proportional to the
creep rate e_ cr by a parameter Cs. Cs has the dimension of length.
v sd C s e_ cr
The modelling results of Cs show good agreement with the
experimental data for austenitic stainless steels, including the ini-
tial stage of GBS, where the GBS rate is higher. Detailed informa-
tion about the two GBS models can be found in [5].
2.2. Cavity nucleation models
In paper [5], a model has been proposed for cavity nucleation at
particles, where a qualitative agreement has been reached. How-
ever, it is not a continuum model, which is difficult to combine
with the creep cavity growth models, as well as for rupture. In
paper [6], a double ledge model for cavity nucleation at intersec-
tions of subboundaries with grain boundaries is given. In the
model, it is assumed that cavities can be generated when sub-
boundary corners or particles on one side of a sliding grain bound-
ary meet subboundaries on the other side of the sliding grain
boundary. By taking the contributions from sub-boundary corners
and particles into account, one can get the final results for the cav-
ity nucleation rate dn/dt:
!
dn 0:9C s 1 1 where fa = (2R/L)2 is the area fraction of the cavitated grain bound-
e_ cr Be_ cr
dt dsub k2 d2sub
where 0.9 is a factor due to the average angle between the grain
boundary and the sliding direction. Cs is the parameter that relates
GBS displacement to creep strain, Eq. (1). k is the particle spacing in
the grain boundaries and e_ cr is the creep strain rate. dsub is the sub-
grain size that can be related to the applied creep stress r
KGb
dsub
r about linearity. In [10], a modified constrained creep cavity growth
where G is the shear modulus, b Burgers vector and K a constant.
For austenitic stainless steels K  20. Further details of the deriva-
tion of the cavity nucleation rate can be found in [6].
Please cite this article in press as: J. He, R. Sandstrm, Basic modelling of creep rupture in austenitic stainless steels, Theor. Appl. Fract. Mech. (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tafmec.2017.02.004
Eq. (2) has the same form as the experimental observations
namely that the cavity nucleation rate is proportional to the creep
rate. The cavity nucleation model can predict the cavity nucleation
behavior quantitatively for austenitic stainless steels. Now it will
be used for predicting the creep cavity growth as well as the rup-
ture in the following sections.
2.3. Models of creep cavity growth
Expressions for growth of creep cavities based on diffusion con-
trol are well established. A model was first proposed by Hull and
Rimmer [17] and improved by subsequent workers, like consider-
ing the cavity shapes [18] and coupling creep to diffusion [8,19].
The representative equations for unconstrained cavity growth
can be found in [8,1820]. Plastic deformation also gives a contri-
bution to the cavity growth [19,20]. In the investigation of different
types of austenitic stainless steels, it has been found that the effect
of plastic deformation is small [10]. In the diffusion controlled
models, the assumption is that the stress acting over the grain facet
is the applied creep stress. It is diffusion controlled cavity growth
driven by the applied stress, cavities can grow without limits. It
was suggested that the stress on the cavitated facets must be shed
to the surroundings until the stress is reduced to a value that the
opening rate of the cavitated boundary is compatible with the
deformation rate of the surroundings [21]. In this case, the cavity
growth will be limited by the overall creep rate of the surround-
ings. This concept was first introduced by Dyson [21] and it is
referred to as the constrained cavity growth.
In the constrained cavity growth model, spherical cavities on a
grain boundary are characterized by cavity radius R and cavity
spacing L. By equating the grain boundary opening rate with
1
the average opening rate of the grain facet, the reduced stress
which is the stress driving the cavity growth can be obtained
[22]. By replacing the applied stress with the reduced stress,
the final results for the constrained cavity radius growth rate
dR/dt can be obtained.
dR 1
2D0 K f rred  r0 2 4
dt R
where R is the cavity radius in the grain boundary plane, rred is
the reduced stress, r0 is the sintering stress 2csurf sin(h)/R, where
csurf is the surface energy per unit area and h the cavity tip angle.
D0 is a grain boundary diffusion parameter, D0 = dDGBX/kBT,
where d is the boundary width, DGB the grain boundary
self-diffusion coefficient, X the atomic volume, kB Boltzmanns
constant and T the absolute temperature. Kf is a factor introduced
by Beere and Speight [23], which is a function of the cavitated
area fraction fa.
1
Kf 5
2logfa  1  f a 3  f a
2 aries. The cavity spacing L can be obtained from the number of cav-
ities per unit grain boundary area ncav:
p
L 1= ncav 6
The number of cavities ncav can be derived with the help of the
cavity nucleation model, Eq. (2).
The reduced stress from Rice [22] was based on an elastic anal-
ysis of an opening crack that was transferred to linear viscoplastic-
3 ity. However, it is not necessary to make these approximations
model has been proposed with help of FEM simulations. To analyze
how far from the cavities that the stress is affected, finite element
calculations of an expanding cavity in a surrounding creep material
 J. He, R. Sandstrm / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics xxx (2017) xxxxxx
was investigated. It was demonstrated that the stress is reduced
within a narrow range R below and above the cavity, where R is
the cavity radius. The final results for the reduced stress can be
obtained from:
2pD0 K f rred  r0 =L2 R e_ cr rred e_ cr r
where e_ cr rred is the creep rate at the reduced stress and e_ cr r is
the creep rate at the applied stress r. The value of the reduced
stress from Eq. (7) has to be determined with iteration. Eq. (7) gives
a lower reduced stress than the previous model by Rice [22],
and consequently a lower growth rate. With Eqs. (4) and (7), it
has been shown that the creep cavity growth behavior can be
predicted quantitatively for different types of austenitic stainless
steels [10].
2.4. Brittle creep rupture models
Brittle creep rupture results from the formation, growth and
coalescence of creep cavities. In the models, it is assumed that
intergranular fracture takes place when the cavitated area fraction
Af has reached a critical value Aflim, which can be taken as 0.25 [7].
The area fraction of cavities on the grain boundaries can be
expressed as [7]
Z t
dncav
Af t1 pR2 t; t1 dt 1 < Aflim
ti dt 1
where R is the radius of the cavities at time t that was formed at
time t1. ncav is determined with the help of Eq. (2). ti is an incubation
time that is about a third of the rupture time, see for example [24].
Thus with combination of the creep cavity nucleation models and
the modified cavity growth models, the brittle rupture due to creep
cavitation could be predicted.
3. Ductile creep rupture
3.1. Precipitation hardening
Another mechanism is the ductile rupture of materials,
where plastic deformation by the motion of dislocations
contributes to the rupture. For steels like TP304 and TP316
the creep rate is primarily controlled by the recovery of disloca-
tions. This is referred to as dislocation creep. Fundamental
models for dislocation creep of austenitic stainless steels have
been developed [11,13,25,26]. The fundamental models will be
used for predicting the ductile creep rupture. If failure takes
place by the exhaustion of deformability, it is referred to as
ductile rupture and it is in general associated with transgranular
failure.
However, before we introduce the models for ductile rupture, it
is necessary to handle the precipitation hardening. The contribu-
tion from precipitation hardening to the creep strength is esti-
mated based on the Orowan mechanism, which can be expressed
as [11,13,26,27]:
2sL m
rPH 0:8
bkrc
where rPH is the precipitation hardening strength contribution, sL
the dislocation line tension, sL = Gb2/2, and m the Taylor factor. krc
is the average particle spacing for particles with radius larger than
rc. rc is the critical particles radius, below which there is sufficient
time for dislocations to climb across them. Thus, particles with
radius smaller than the critical particle radius rc, will not contribute
to the creep strength. The critical particle radius rc can be obtained
as the climb time of the dislocations across the particles multiplied
with the dislocation climb velocity vdisl:
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3
2r c tclimb v disl 10
where tclimb is a significant fraction of the component life. It is
taken as a quarter of the design life [13]. The dislocation
climb velocity can be expressed with help of the climb
7 mobility Mclimb, vdisl = bMclimbr. The dislocation climb mobility
Mclimb is given by
!  
r  rPH b
3
Ds0 b Q self
Mclimb T; r exp exp  f sol 11
kB T kB T Rg T
where Dso is the pre-exponential coefficient for self-diffusion, kB the
Boltzmanns constant, T the absolute temperature, Rg the gas con-
stant and Qself the activation energy for self-diffusion. fsol is a factor
that takes solid solution hardening into account, i.e. that the creep
rate is reduced with increasing amount of alloying elements in solid
solution. fsol = exp(Qsol/Rg/T), where Qsol is the increase in activation
energy due to element in solid solution. Using the computation in
[28], results in the following values for Qsol = 960, 460, 10,000,
2200, 2900 J mol1 for the main elements in solid solution Cr, Ni,
Mo, Si, and Mn, respectively. Qsol is a measure of the interaction
energy between the solutes and the dislocations. Qsol in Eq. (11) is
taken as the maximum of these values, i.e. for the element that
slows down the dislocation most due to solute drag [28]. For the
alloys considered in the next section, Mn gives the largest value
(2900 J mol1) except for 316H where Mo is present
8
(10,000 J mol1).
The average particle spacing krc can be obtained from the num-
ber of precipitates Npart per unit grain boundary area
1
krc p 12
Npart
The thermodynamic software MatCalc [5,27] was used to
calculate the number of particles per unit area and their
corresponding radii, where a reference state of particles with an
average radius r and number of particles N 0part was obtained. Then,
the number of precipitates with radius larger than rc was
determined [5,13,26,27]:
Npart N0part ekr rc 13
where kr 1=r , and r is the average particle radius corresponding to
the number of precipitates N 0part . MatCalc is a commercial software
that provides thermodynamic modelling of particle nucleation and
growth [29]. For detailed setup of the calculation system with Mat-
Calc, one can refer to [5,27]. With the help of MatCalc calculations
and Eqs. (10)(13), one can get the average particle spacing krc.
And with Eq. (9), one can finally get the precipitation hardening that
contributes to the creep strength.
3.2. Ductile rupture models
Fundamental models for dislocation creep of austenitic stainless
steels have been developed, where the secondary creep rate can be
described as [11,13,25,27]:
9 2bK sL r  r 3
e_ cr M T; r
PH
f SFE 14
am2 clgl amGb
where b is Burgers vector and K is the constant in Eq. (3). a is a
constant and m is the Taylor factor, which is about 3.06 for fcc
materials. When describing the creep rate it is essential to take
both climb and glide into account. Mclgl(T, r) is the glide and climb
mobility of dislocations and fSFE is the stacking fault energy factor.
r is the applied stress and G the shear modulus. rPH is the precip-
itation hardening strength introduced above, Eq. (9). Mclgl(T, r) can
be expressed as
4 J. He, R. Sandstrm / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics xxx (2017) xxxxxx

! ( "  #),
r  rPH b r  rPH 2
3
Ds0 b Q self
M clgl T; r exp exp  1 f sol
kB T kB T Rg T rimax
15
where rimax is taken as the tensile strength at ambient
temperature.
The splitting of dislocations into partials increases with
decreasing stacking fault energy cSFE. This reduces the climb rate
of the dislocations and thereby also the creep rate. Its influence
has been derived by Argon and Moffatt [30] with the help of a fac-
tor fSFE that is given by
 2
24p1  m cSFE 2
f SFE 2 16
2m Gb

where m is the Poissons ratio, G the shear modulus and b Burgers

vector. Stacking fault energy values for austenitic stainless steels
have been reported by Vitos et al. [31].
It is assumed that ductile rupture occurs when the creep ductil-
ity has been exhausted. The critical rupture strain ecrit is taken as a
general value of 0.2 to avoid introducing experimental data in the
model. 0.2 is a typical rupture ductility for a number of austenitic
Fig. 2. Comparison of creep strength contributions for 18Cr12NiNb (347H) at
700 C. Dislocation Hardn indicates the dislocation hardening, + precipitation Hardn
indicates the dislocation hardening plus precipitation hardening, + Solid Solution
Hardn indicates the total strength.

stainless steels.

t ductrupt ecrit =e_ cr 17

When the creep strain according to Eq. (14) has reached the
critical strain creep rupture takes place.
When taking both ductile and brittle rupture into account, Eqs.
(8) and (14), the simple principle is that the type of failure that is
predicted to take place first is assumed to be controlling. In this
way, the modelling results can agree with the fact that there are
mixed types of fracture modes. The creep rupture strength of aus-
tenitic stainless steels will be modelled based on the combination
of ductile and brittle rupture and compared to experiments in the
following sections.
4. Modelling results
The ductile rupture involves modelling of the creep rate, Eq.
(14). Fig. 1 shows the creep rupture strength prediction for
18Cr12NiNb (347H) steels based on dislocation creep, Eq. (14).
The main contribution to the creep strength comes from the
dislocations. About 14% stems from the precipitation hardening
due to the presence of NbC at higher stresses and it increases to
about 25% with increasing of creep time at lower stresses. Solid
solution hardening accounts for about 3% at higher stresses and
13% at lower stresses, Fig. 2. A comparison is made to experimental
data at different temperatures [32]. As can be seen from Fig. 1, the
model can describe the overall behavior of the creep rupture
curves in the temperature range 600750 C.
Brittle rupture is predicted with the help of Eq. (8). As discussed
in Section 2.4, when the cavitated area fraction reaches a critical
value at the grain boundaries, brittle rupture occurs. Fig. 3 shows
the creep rupture strength prediction for 18Cr12NiNb (347H)
steels based on creep cavitation models, Eq. (8).
By comparing Fig. 1 with Fig. 3 one can see that the tempera-
ture dependence is larger in the latter Figure. This can be
understood by considering Eq. (8). The temperature dependence
of the first term, the nucleation rate, has the same activation as
the creep rate, Eq. (2), which is approximately that of

Fig. 1. Creep rupture strength prediction for 18Cr12NiNb (347H) based on Fig. 3. Creep rupture strength prediction for 18Cr12NiNb (347H) based on creep
dislocation creep, Eq. (14). Experimental data from [32] at temperatures between cavitation, Eq. (8). Experimental data from [32] at temperatures between 600 and
600 and 750 C. 750 C.

Please cite this article in press as: J. He, R. Sandstrm, Basic modelling of creep rupture in austenitic stainless steels, Theor. Appl. Fract. Mech. (2017), http://
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 J. He, R. Sandstrm / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics xxx (2017) xxxxxx 5

(a)

Fig. 4. Creep rupture strength prediction for 18Cr12NiNb (347H) based on

combinations of dislocation creep and creep cavitation models Eqs. (8) and (14).
Experimental data from [32] at temperatures between 600 and 750 C.

self-diffusion Qself. The R2 factor has a temperature dependence

that can be derived from Eq. (4). The activation energy in this case
2/3 QGB, where QGB is the activation energy for grain boundary
diffusion. So the model gives the following activation energies
for ductile and brittle creep rupture
Q DuctRupt Q self Q sol 18

2
Q BrittleRupt Q self Q GB Q sol 19
3
These results will analyzed in the discussion.
When taking both ductile and brittle rupture into account, the
shorter rupture time from dislocation creep and creep cavitation (b)
is assumed to be controlling. In the calculation, the results from
the two models, Eqs. (8) and (14), will be generated and compared,
then the shorter ones will be taken as the rupture time that will be
used to plot the modelling curves. By combining contributions
from dislocation creep and creep cavitation, Fig. 4 that a better
agreement with experiments can be reached. Comparing Figs. 1
4 one finds that the role of the creep cavitation is of primary
importance at low stresses and high temperatures, whereas the
dislocation creep dominates at higher stresses and lower tempera-
tures. It can be seen that by taking brittle rupture into account, the
prediction of rupture time for long times is considerably improved.
The results for 18Cr12NiTi (321H) stainless steel is quite
similar to that for 347H, Fig. 5. The main difference is that
the precipitation hardening of TiC is slightly weaker than for
NbC in 347H.
It is evident that the models can describe the rupture curves
over the full temperature interval reasonable well.
Results for 17Cr12Ni2Mo (316H) austenitic stainless steel are
(c)
presented in Fig. 6. With the combined ductile and brittle rupture
models, creep rupture strength of austenitic stainless steels can be
predicted quantitatively. Fig. 7 shows the comparison of creep Fig. 5. Creep rupture strength prediction for 18Cr12NiTi (321H) based on (a)
Dislocation creep, Eq. (14); (b) creep cavitation. Eq. (8); (c) combinations of
strength contribution, where it can be seen that the solid solution
dislocation and cavitation models Eqs. (8) and (14). Experimental data from [33] at
hardening represents about 10% of the total strength at higher temperatures between 600 and 775 C.
stresses and it increases to around 33% at lower stresses with
increasing of creep time. 5. Discussion
The computations do not reproduce all details of the rupture
curves. Technically, the most important result is that the behavior 5.1. Critical area fraction
of the rupture curves are well represented at long times and high
temperatures, which is the part that is most difficult to cover by There are different ways of defining the critical cavitated area
testing. fraction. Here, it refers to the one on grain boundaries. The critical

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6 J. He, R. Sandstrm / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics xxx (2017) xxxxxx
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 6. Creep rupture strength prediction for 17Cr12Ni2Mo (316H) based on (a)
Dislocation creep, Eq. (14); (b) creep cavitation, Eq. (8); (c) combinations of
dislocation and cavitation models, Eqs. (8) and (14). Experimental data from [34] at
temperatures between 600 and 750 C.
value of the area fraction of creep cavities at grain boundaries was
chosen as 0.25. The prediction of the rupture stress is not very sen-
sitive to the exact value chosen due to the high value of the creep
Please cite this article in press as: J. He, R. Sandstrm, Basic modelling of creep rupture in austenitic stainless steels, Theor. Appl. Fract. Mech. (2017), http://
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Fig. 7. Comparison of creep strength contribution for 17Cr12Ni2Mo (316H) at
700 C. Dislocation Hardn indicates the dislocation hardening, + Solid Solution
Hardn indicates the dislocation hardening plus solid solution hardening.
exponent [7]. By modelling, a value of about 1/3 was found [35,36],
when the long range coalescence of cavities starts to cause the for-
mation of dominant cracks. Experimentally, a critical fracture value
of 27% has been observed [37]. When the critical values reach p/4
[38], the cavities will touch each other, which will result in failure.
All these values are not very different from the assumed value of
0.25.
5.2. Sigma phase particles
Significant amount of sigma phase can be formed in TP321 and
TP347 for example if they are exposed to cold working, and this
would reduce the creep ductility. It is important that this is pre-
vented in technical applications. If a small amount of sigma phase
particles is present, cavities will nucleate around them. However,
the most common particles for cavity nucleation to occur in these
steels are M23C6 at grain boundaries, and that is fully taken into
account in the creep cavity nucleation model.
5.3. Comparison of ductile and brittle rupture
For creep rupture prediction of austenitic stainless steels, tradi-
tional empirical models are based on fitting parameters from exist-
ing experiments. They are not very reliable for long term
extrapolation and they are also not applicable to new conditions.
Thus, it has been proposed that physically based models should
be used and that fitting of parameters to the creep data should
be avoided [11], and this is the chosen approach in the present
paper. In the models, it is assumed that:
(a) The models can represent the controlling mechanisms.
(b) All parameters in the model should be well defined and it
should be known how to determine them accurately.
(c) No parameters should be fitted to the creep data.
(d) The results of the modelling should be sufficiently precise to
use technically.
Based on these concepts, physically based creep models have
been developed for Cu and austenitic stainless steels [11,12,25]
where no fitting parameters were involved.
It is found that at higher stress and lower temperature, the rup-
ture is dominated by the ductile rupture. Creep cavitation which
 J. He, R. Sandstrm / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics xxx (2017) xxxxxx 7

causes the brittle rupture can explain the earlier failure at higher Appendix A. Constants used in the computation
temperatures and lower stresses. It is clearly shown that with com-
binations of the ductile and brittle rupture models, the prediction The constants used in this work are shown in Table A.1.
of creep rupture strength for austenitic stainless steels can be
improved. Table A.1
Constants for austenitic stainless steels used in the computations.
Attempts have been made in the literature to correlate the
strain on loading during creep tests with the creep rupture behav- Parameter description Parameter Value References
ior of austenitic stainless steels [14,15]. When the creep stress Grain boundary diffusion dDGB 218700
[39]
109:87 e Rgas T

exceeded the yield strength, higher creep ductility was obtained constant
than otherwise [14,15]. This result is difficult to relate to the Shear modulus G (780.036  (T  273))  [40]
103 MPa
amount of plastic deformation, since the highest ductility is con-
Activation energy for Q 293 kJ mol1 [41]
nected to the largest amount of loading strain, and this is in contra- self-diffusion
diction to the fact that cold work is known to reduce the creep Atomic volume X 1.21  1029 m3 [42]
ductility. Boltzmann constant kB 1.381  1023 J K1
If activation energies are evaluated from the experimental rup- Burgers vector b 2.58  1010 m
Poissons ratio m 0.3 [43]
ture curves in Figs. 16, the following values are obtained: about Surface energy csurf 2.8 J m2 [44]
360 kJ mol1 for alloys without molybdenum and 403 kJ mol1 for Cavity tip angle h 70 [22]
alloys with molybdenum. Creep strain rate models are typically Pre-exponential coefficient Ds0 3.15e4 m2 s1 [41]
based on the assumption that the activation energy is given by that for self-diffusion
Taylor factor m 3.06
of self-diffusion, which is 293 kJ mol1 for austenitic stainless steels
Work hardening constant a (1  m/2)/2p(1  m) = 0.19 [45]
with modestly high amounts of alloying elements, see Table A.1.
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