Effects of environments and shot peening on creep and creep-fatigue behaviors of Ni-Fe-base superalloy inconel® alloy 706

Fleet leader machines with non-shot-peened discs made of Inonel® alloy 706 were experienced to have cracks in the first stage gas turbine wheels. These were inter-granular cracking and observed to be highly stressed locations with less potential for oxidation, which is thought to be quasi-brittle inter-granular cracking due to stress induced atmospheric oxygen penetration, so called, hold-time cracking. To recognize this phenomenon, creep and creep-fatigue tests with smooth and notched specimens were conducted at 600 and 650°C in air and vacuum and confirmed the environmental effects on those lives and fracture modes. The effectiveness of shot peening which was used as one of the countermeasures for this phenomenon was verified by using the creep-fatigue tests. The durability was also evaluated by thermal and stress aging tests at 450 and 500°C up to around 10⁴ hours. Little relaxations were observed during the thermal agings after the initial rapid relaxation of the surface residual stress, but the effects of the loading stresses were observed above the yielding stress at each temperature.