Fatigue crack growth rate tests were conducted as a function of temperature, dissolved hydrogen (DH) level, and frequency in a simulated PWR environment. Fatigue crack growth rates increased slightly with increasing temperature in air. However, the fatigue crack growth rate did not change with increasing temperature in PWR water conditions. The DH levels did not affect the measured crack growth rate under the given test conditions. At 316 oC, oxides were observed on the fatigue crack surface, where the size of the oxide particles was about 0.2 μm at 5 ppb. Fatigue crack growth rate increased slightly with decreasing frequency within the frequency range of 0.1 Hz and 10 Hz in PWR water conditions; however, crack growth rate increased considerably at 0.01 Hz. The decrease of the fatigue crack growth rate in PWR water condition is attributed to crack closure resulting from the formation of oxides near the crack tips at a rather fast loading frequency of 10 Hz.

The effect of retained and reversed austenite on the damping capacity in high manganese stainless steel with two phases of martensite and austenite was studied. The two phase structure of martensite and retained austenite was obtained by deformation for various degrees of deformation, and a two phase structure of martensite and reverse austenite was obtained by reverse annealing treatment for various temperatures after 70 % cold rolling. With the increase in the degree of deformation, the retained austenite and damping capacity rapidly decreased, with an increase in the reverse annealing temperature, the reversed austenite and damping capacity rapidly increased. With the volume fraction of the retained and reverse austenite, the damping capacity increased rapidly. At same volume of retained and reversed austenite, the damping capacity of the reversed austenite was higher than the retained austenite. Thus, the damping capacity was affected greatly by the reversed austenite.