[en] Welds in materials intended for service at temperatures above the creep activation temperature often develop damage before the base metal. The weld is a discontinuity in the material and stresses and strains often accumulate in the weld. Knowledge of the properties of the weld is essential to the safe operation of the component containing the weld. The work in this thesis has been aimed at the study of welds in service at high temperatures: The work is divided into two main chapters. The first chapter deals with welds in stainless steels and dissimilar metal welds and includes three papers, and the second chapter deals with welds in copper intended for nuclear waste disposal, also including three papers. Common to both parts is that the temperature is high enough for most of the damage in the welds to result from creep. In the first part the role of the weld microstructure on the creep crack propagation properties has been studied. Experiments using compact tension specimens have been performed on service exposed, low alloyed heat resistant steels. The results show good correlation with the crack tip parameter, C*, during steady state creep crack growth. The test methodology has also been reviewed and sensitive test parameters have been identified. The results from the creep crack propagation tests on service exposed material has been modeled using uniaxial creep data on both new and ex-service material. The development of the weld microstructure in a dissimilar metal weld between two heat resistant steels has also been investigated. A weld was made between one ferritic and one martensitic steel and the development of the microstructure during welding and post-weld heat treatments has been studied. The results show that the carbon depleted zone that develops near the weld metal in the lower alloyed steel depends on the formation and dissolution of the M23C6-carbide. Variations of the weld parameters and the post-weld heat treatment affect the size and shape of this zone. The process has been successfully modeled by computer simulation. The second part focuses on oxygen free copper intended for nuclear waste disposal containers. The containers are made with an inner core of cast nodular iron and an outer core of copper for corrosion protection. The copper shell has to be welded and two weld methods has been tested, electron beam welding and friction stir welding. Creep specimens taken from both weld types have been tested as have base metal specimens. The technical specifications of the waste canisters demand that the creep ductility of both the copper shell and the welds has to be as high as possible. The creep test results show that base material doped with at least 30 ppm phosphorus has high creep ductility, and friction stir welds made from this material has almost as high creep strength and creep ductility. Copper without phosphorus does not exhibit the same ductility. The creep properties evaluated from testing has been modeled and extrapolated for the intended purpose

[en] Spent nuclear fuel is in Sweden planned to be disposed by encapsulating in waste packages consisting of a cast iron insert surrounded by a copper canister. The cast iron is load bearing and the copper canister gives corrosion protection. The waste package is heavy. Throughout the manufacturing process from the extrusion/pierce-and-draw manufacturing to the final placement in the repository, the copper is subjected to handling which could introduce cold work in the material. It is well known that the creep properties of engineering materials at higher temperatures are affected by cold working. The study includes creep testing of four series of cold worked, oxygen-free, phosphorus doped copper (Cu-OFP) at 75 deg C. The results are compared to reference series for as series of copper cold worked in tension (12 and 24 %) and two series cold worked in compression (12 % parallel to creep load axis and 15 % perpendicular to creep load axis) were tested. The results show that pre-straining in tension of copper leads to prolonged creep life at 75 deg C. The creep rate and ductility are reduced. The influence on the creep properties increases with the amount of cold work. Cold work in compression applied along the creep load axis has no effect on the creep life or the creep rate. Nonetheless the ductility is still impaired. However, cold work in compression applied perpendicular to the creep load direction has a positive effect on the creep life. Cold work in both tension and compression results in a pronounced reduction of the initial creep strain, which is the strain obtained from the beginning of the loading until full creep load is achieved. Yet the area reduction is unaffected by the degree of cold work

[en] Creep testing of copper intended for nuclear waste disposal has been performed on continuous creep tests machines at a temperature of 75 deg C. The loading time has been varied from 1 hour to 6 months. The rupture strain including both loading and creep strains does not differ from traditional dead weight lever creep test rigs. The loading strain increases with increasing loading time, at the expense of the creep strain. The time dependence of the creep strain has been modelled taking athermal plastic deformation and creep into account. During loading the contribution to the strain from the athermal plastic deformation dominates until the stress is close to the constant load level. When the constant load has been reached there is no more athermal strain and all of the strain comes from creep

[en] The creep strain at room temperature, 100 and 125 deg C has been investigated for the ferritic nodular cast iron insert intended for use as the load-bearing part of canisters for long term disposal of spent nuclear fuel. The microstructure consisted of ferrite, graphite nodules of different sizes, compacted graphite and pearlite. Creep tests have been performed for up to 41,000 h. The specimens were cut out from material taken from two genuine inserts, I30 and I55. After creep testing, the specimens from the 100 deg C tests were hardness tested and a metallographic examination was performed. Creep strains at all temperatures appear to be logarithmic, and accumulation of creep strain diminishes with time. The time dependence of the creep strain is consistent to the W-model for primary creep. During the loading plastic strains up to 1% appeared. The maximum recorded creep strain after the loading phase was 0.025%. This makes the creep strains technically insignificant. Acoustic emission recordings during the loading of the room temperature tests showed no sounds or other evidence of microcracking during the loading phase. There is no evidence that the hardness or the graphite microstructure changed during the creep tests

[en] Creep in copper for application in canisters for nuclear waste disposal is surveyed. The importance of phosphorus doping to obtain adequate properties is demonstrated experimentally as well as explained theoretically. Creep tests results for electron beam and friction stir welds are compared. The latter type of welds has properties that are close to those of parent metal. The relation between slow strain rate tensile and creep is described. Fundamental constitutive equations are presented that are suitable for finite element modelling. These equations are used to simulate creep deformation in canisters