Influence of Steel-making Process and Heat-treatment Temperature on the Fatigue and Fracture Properties of Pressure Vessel Steels

제강 및 열처리 조건이 압력용기강의 피로 및 파괴특성에 미치는 영향

In this paper, high strength pressure vessel steels having the same chemical compositions were manufactured by the two different steel-making processes, such as vacuum degassing(VD) and electro-slag remelting(ESR) methods. After the steel-making process, they were normalized at $955^{\circ}C$, quenched at $843^{\circ}C$, and finally tempered at $550^{\circ}C$ or $450^{\circ}C$, resulting in tempered martensitic microstructures with different yielding strengths depending on the tempering conditions. Low-cycle fatigue(LCF) tests, fatigue crack growth rate(FCGR) tests, and fracture toughness tests were performed to investigate the fatigue and fracture behaviors of the pressure vessel steels. In contrast to very similar monotonic, LCF, and FCGR behaviors between VD and ESR steels, a quite difference was noticed in the fracture toughness. Fracture toughness of ESR steel was higher than that of VD steel, being attributed to the removal of impurities in steel-making process.