Low Cycle Fatigue behavior of SMAW welded Alloy28 superaustenitic stainless steel at room temperature

This paper focused on the study of Low Cycle Fatigue of welded joints of superaustenitic (Alloy28) stainless steels. Chemical composition and microstructure investigation of Base Metal (BM) and Weld Metal (WM) were identified. The results showed that both of composition is fully austenitic with a dendritic microstructure in the WM. Low cycle fatigue tests at different strain levels were performed on Base Metal (BM) and Welded Joint (WJ) specimens with a strain ratio Rε=−1. The results indicated that the fatigue life of welded joints is lower than the base metal. This is mainly due to the low ductility of the Welded Metal (WM) and the presence of welding defects. Simultaneously, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) observations of fractured specimens show that WJ have brittle behavior compared to BM with the presence of several welding defects especially in the crack initiation site. An estimation of the crack growth rate during LCF tests of BM and WJ was performed using distance between striations. The results showed that the crack initiation stage is shorter in the case of WJ compared to BM because of the presence of welding defects in WJ specimens.