Characterization a Bending Fatigue Mini-Specimen Technique (Krouse Type) of Nuclear Materials

A bending fatigue mini-specimen (Krouse type) was used to study the fatigue properties of nuclear materials for (SS304L, HT9). The objective of this paper study fatigue for HT9 ferritic-martensitic steel and SS304L using a mini-specimen (Krouse type) suitable for reactor irradiation studies. These mini-specimens are similar in design (but smaller) to that described in the ASTM B593 standard. A bending fatigue machine was modified to test the mini-specimen. This study was conducted to evaluate the high cycle bending fatigue behavior of HT9 and SS304 and compare its bending properties with simulations conducted with the Abaqus FEA code. Other properties including tensile strength and hardness were also measured. The S-N fatigue results were affected by polishing of surface and bending fatigue reported values for HT9 were lower than the typical S-N curve for SS304L.