Analysis of Material Hardening Effect on the SCC Creep Characteristics Around the Crack Tip in the Welding Zone

The mechanical properties of the crack tip are vital for material safety evaluation. The weld material of welded joints is prone to work hardening during processing and installation, which changes the material mechanical properties and seriously affects the safety assessment of nuclear power welded joints. At the same time, nuclear power pipelines will creep under high temperatures and cause changes in the mechanical field at the crack tip. This paper obtains the mechanical properties of nickel-based alloy 182 in a nuclear power water environment. With the help of ABAQUS software, the change rules of the crack tip stress field and creep field under different hardening degrees are analyzed, and then the influence on crack tip creep and crack propagation rate is analyzed. Results show that increasing pre-hardening will increase the Mises stress around the crack tip, and the creep around the crack tip is expressed under pre-deformation, indicating that pre-hardening can accelerate the cracking of stress corrosion to a certain extent. Research has shown that the work hardening induced by the pre-deformation has an important influence on the creep rate at the crack tip, and the high creep zone is mainly concentrated in the direction of crack propagation. Under a certain work hardening rate, the crack growth will be accumulated.