Test data for uniaxial creep on material INCONEL 617 at 900 Celsius and a stress of 54.8 MPa

The Alloy 617 creep rupture data were determined for the high temperature reactor projects (the direct cycle helium turbine project, the nuclear process heat project and the district heating project) of the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of North Rhine Westphalia, the aim being to qualify the alloy for service at temperatures up to 950°C. Alloy 617 was the prime candidate alloy for construction of the He-He intermediate heat exchanger and hot gas ducting. Several batches and product forms (forged bar, rolled plate, pipes and tubes) of the alloy were investigated and special attention was given to the effects of the service environments (helium containing different impurity gases, such as hydrogen, water vapour, carbon monoxide and methane, all at microbar levels, and methane reforming gas mixture) on the properties. In the test machines, these test environments led to carburisation of test pieces. However, analysis of the data showed that the stress rupture data for tests in air, in impure helium and in methane reforming gas lay in the same scatter band at each temperature tested.

The creep rupture tests were carried out in single-specimen and multi-specimen test machines. In the single specimen machines the strain was continuously monitored and strain readings were taken once a day. In the multi-specimen test rigs, there were six strings, each with a different load. There were up to eight test pieces per string and strain measurements were made by interrupting the tests, cooling to room temperature, then measuring the length of each test piece using a travelling microscope. Test interruptions for strain measurements were generally every 1000 h. The tests were carried out according to the German Standard DIN 50118 (1982).

The data (secondary creep rate, time to 1% strain, time to rupture) were used for the formulation of draft nuclear design rules for the high temperature reactor systems, which are summarised in 'Proceedings of the Workshop on Structural Design Criteria for HTR', G Breitbach, F Schubert, H Nickel, Jül-Conf-71, April 1989, Berichte der Kernforschungsanlage Jülich GmbH, ISSN 0344-5798.

In addition to the creep rupture data, Alloy 617 tensile properties, low cycle fatigue and creep crack growth data are stored in MatDB.