High Temperature Fatigue Crack Growth Kinetics of a High Performance Ferritic (HiperFer) Steel

Abstract

The fatigue crack propagation behavior of an experimental fully ferritic high-chromium steel HiperFer 17Cr2 was investigated at elevated temperatures of 650 °C and 675 °C at loading frequencies of 20, 5, and 0.05 Hz, motivated by the demand for advanced high-temperature materials capable of improving the thermodynamic efficiency of future thermal energy conversion systems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The widely used 9Cr-1Mo-V-Nb ferritic-martensitic steel P91 was examined in parallel at 650 °C for benchmarking purposes. Complementary microstructural analyses were performed to characterize frequency- and temperature-dependent damage mechanisms. At 650 °C, the stress intensity required for the initiation of crack propagation was substantially higher in HiperFer 17Cr2 than in P91 across all tested frequencies. Furthermore, crack growth rates were up to half an order of magnitude lower in HiperFer 17Cr2. At 675 °C, frequency-dependent damage mechanisms were identified, including dynamic recovery, subgrain formation, and pipe diffusion-assisted redistribution of Cr and Nb, promoting formation of the metastable C14 Cr₂Nb Laves phase at grain and sub-grain boundaries. These precipitates effectively impeded crack progression, while crack-tip blunting reduced the local driving force for crack propagation. The results indicate that HiperFer 17Cr2 is suitable for continuous service at 675 °C under high-cycle fatigue conditions in the frequency range from 5 to 20 Hz.

Keywords

HiperFer / 9–12% Cr steel / Fatigue crack growth / Laves phase / Microstructural mechanisms

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the former colleagues of Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH for their continuous contributions to HiperFer alloy development. The support of B. Werner and H. Reiners in mechanical testing, V. Gutzeit and J. Bartsch in sample preparation, and E. Wessel and D. Grüner for microstructural investigation of this specific study is greatly appreciated.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: T.F. and B.K.; Methodology: T.F.; Software: T.F.; Validation: B.K.; Formal Analysis: T.F. and B.K.; Investigation: T.F. and B.K.; Resources: B.K.; Data Curation: T.F. and B.K.; Writing-Original Draft Preparation: T.F.; Writing-Review & Editing, B.K.; Visualization: T.F. and B.K.; Supervision: B.K.; Project Administration: B.K.; Funding Acquisition: B.K.

Ethics Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Not available.

Funding

Parts of this research were funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) under grant number AOBJ 671123 and the Germany Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) under grant number FKZ 03ET7024A.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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