Creep damage and fracture of weldments at high temperature

Recent research activities on high temperature behaviour of welded structures are briefly reviewed in this paper. A local deformation measuring technique is developed to determine the creep properties of weldment constituents in light of optical fiber marking and remote monitoring technique. A damage mechanics approach is introduced to study the life reduction due to the presence of a weld and the effect of weld repair. Different types of weldments have been studied to obtain the general understanding of the damage developed in the welded structures. Finally, the high temperature creep crack growth (CCG) in weldments is discussed. A modified time-dependent fracture parameter is proposed to interpret the CCG in the weldments.