Interpolation and Extrapolation of Creep Rupture Data by the Minimum Commitment Method. Part 3: Analysis of Multiheats

The Minimum Commitment Method was applied to two sets of data for which multiple heat information was available. For one alloy, a 304 stainless steel studied in Japan, data on nine well characterized heats were used, while for a proprietary low alloy carbon steel studied in the United Kingdom data were available on seven heats - in many cases to very long rupture times. For this preliminary study no instability factors were used. It was discovered that heat-to-heat variations would be accounted for by introducing heat identifiers in the form A + B log sigma where sigma is the stress and the constants A and B depend only on the heat. With these identifiers all the data could be collapsed onto a single master curve, even though there was considerable scatter among heats. Using these identifiers together with the average behavior of all heats made possible the determination of an accurate constitutive equation for each individual heat. Two basic approaches are discussed for applying the results of the analysis.