Thermal Fatigue under Pulsating Thermal Stress Cycling

Abstract

In the present paper, the strength of pulsating tensile thermal stress cycling is discussed by employing AISI 347 type stainless steel, in comparison with those of fully reversed thermal stress cycling and of static creep rupture. Lifetime for pulsating tensile thermal stress cycling is much smaller than the case of completely reversed thermal stress cycling, and lifetime of pulsating stressing can be predicted approximately from the test data of static creep rupture, provided that the increase in thermal stress amplitude with the number of thermal strain cycles follows the curve of strain-hardening of the material. Any influence of the mode of temperature variation on the number of thermal strain cycles to fracture for pulsating thermal stress cycling is not observed.