Review on effect of cyclic loading on environmental assisted cracking of alloy 600 in typical nuclear coolant waters

Corrosion fatigue data for alloy 600 in simulated primary side, pressurised water reactor (PWR) coolant and in oxygenated pure water (OPW) have been r eviewed. Higher crack growth rates occur in these environments than in air and the former show a dependence upon frequency of loading, v, and R ratio. The da/dN versus DeltaK plots have a tendency to show plateau regions wher e da/dN remains constant with increasing DeltaK. The enhancements of crack growth over those in air due to cyclic loading are larger in OPW than in si mulated PWR primary side water. If corrosion fatigue of alloy 600 was perce ived of importance for reactor components, the existing data base will need to be extended and it would be necessary to generate more air fatigue data than is currently available. Conventional S-N fatigue and corrosion fatigu e data from smooth surface specimens may also be required, collected taking due regard of the possible effects of R and v mentioned above. (C) 2001 El sevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.