Steady-State Creep Behavior of Super304H Austenitic Steel at Elevated Temperatures

Creep behavior of Super304H austenitic steel has been investigated at elevated temperatures of 923-973 K and at applied stress of 190-210 MPa. The results show that the apparent stress exponent and activation energy in the creep deformation range from 16.2 to 27.4 and from 602.1 to 769.3 kJ/mol at different temperatures, respectively. These high values imply the presence of a threshold stress due to an interaction between the dislocations and Cu-rich precipitates during creep deformation. The creep mechanism is associated with the dislocation climbing governed by the matrix lattice diffusion. The origin of the threshold stress is mainly attributed to the coherency strain induced in the matrix by Cu-rich precipitates. The theoretically estimated threshold stresses from Cu-rich precipitates agree reasonably with the experimental results.