Assessment of power law creep constants of Gr91 steel using small punch creep tests

ABSTRACT A method for determining the power law creep constants using the small punch (SP) creep test is studied. We performed elastic‐plastic‐secondary creep finite‐element (FE) analysis of Gr91 (ASTM A387 GR91 CL2) steel using the properties at 565 °C to investigate the evolution of stress and strain rate at the weakest location of the SP creep specimen, i.e. at the annular region located at about 0.7 mm from the centre of the specimen. Empirical relations that correlate the applied load to the equivalent stress and the punch displacement rate to the equivalent creep strain rate are suggested on the basis of the finite‐element stress analysis results. These simple relations enable us to achieve the constitutive relation of equivalent stress and equivalent creep strain rate under small punch creep test condition. To validate this approach, SP creep tests were conducted and creep constants were evaluated by using the proposed relations. These evaluated creep constants were then compared with those measured from standard uniaxial creep test. It is shown that creep constants evaluated from the SP creep test and the proposed method are in a good agreement with those from the uniaxial creep test.