Wear 253 (2002) 438447

The effect of subsurface deformation on the wear behavior

of steam generator tube materials
Young-Ho Lee, In-Sup Kim
Department of Nuclear Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST),
373-1, Guseong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-701, South Korea
Received 29 October 2001; received in revised form 4 April 2002; accepted 27 May 2002

Abstract
Fretting wear behavior of steam generator (SG) tube materials (Inconel 600MA and 690TT) against ferritic stainless steels was investigated in a room temperature water environment. The results indicated that the fretting wear rate and wear coefficient (K) in a work-rate
model of Inconel 600MA were higher than those of Inconel 690TT with increasing normal loads and sliding amplitudes. From the results of
scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observation, there was little evidence of particle agglomeration on the worn surfaces, while wear particles were released in the form of thin plates, which were generated from deformation substructures formed by severe plastic deformation
during fretting wear. Therefore, the wear rates of SG tube materials in the room temperature water are closely related with plastic deformation behavior on contact surfaces. In subsurface layer, wear particle size seems to be determined by cell-structure thickness and closely
related to the difference of stacking fault energy (SFE) of tube materials through chromium contents. Inconel 690TT showed lower wear
rate because it should have relatively smaller cells due to lower SFE than Inconel 600MA and in turn may easily accommodate large strains.
2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Steam generator; Fretting wear; Work-rate model; Inconel alloys; Stacking fault energy

1. Introduction
The formation of wear particle layers and the subsurface
deformation are widely observed phenomena under sliding
or fretting contact of metals. It was proposed that the wear
rate is strongly influenced by those two phenomena in various test conditions [112]. If wear particles are easily oxidized and compacted on the rubbing surface, they act as a
wear protective layer, which decreases the total wear rate.
Otherwise, they may act as abrasives which accelerate wear
damage [4]. Sometimes, the metal-to-metal contact is more
dominant, especially in water or in air blowing condition
[5]. Thus, it is very important that the wear rate at high flow
rate condition such as the secondary side of nuclear power
plant is controlled by the variation of mechanical properties in surface or in subsurface because wear particles are
released after plastic deformation.
The effect of wear particle layers on the wear rate of
nickel-based alloy at temperatures of 20250 C has been reported previously [13]. It was reported that wear transitions
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82-42-869-3815; fax: +82-42-869-3810.
E-mail addresses: yhl052kr@mail.kaist.ac.kr (Y.-H. Lee),
iskim@mail.kaist.ac.kr (I.-S. Kim).

from an initial high rate to a low rate were accompanied by

the development of high-resistance load-bearing layers on
the wear surface. With increasing temperature, wear particles were heavily oxidized, resulting in oxide-to-oxide contact between the rubbing surfaces. It was suggested that the
mechanism of these transitions may have been due to the adhesion between the worn surface and wear particles, which
prevents wear particles being released from the contact surfaces.
On the other hand, in a water environment such as the
secondary side of steam generator (SG) in a nuclear power
plant, it is difficult to form the wear particle layer between
tubes and their supports during fretting wear. This may
be result of water lubrication or the easy removal of wear
particles due to the high water flow rates. Therefore, it is
expected that the wear rate of SG tube materials strongly
depended on the deformation characteristics of the worn surface or in subsurface during fretting wear. Sauger et al. [14]
proposed that a specific superficial layer is formed during
the very first cycles of fretting loading, which is called the
tribologically transformed structure (TTS). They emphasize
that understanding the mechanisms of formation of the TTS
is a key step in the modeling of wear induced by fretting.
But this TTS will disappear after a large number of cycles.

0043-1648/02/$ see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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439

With increasing number of fretting cycles, it is expected

that the wear-determining factors are plastic deformation
and fracture on wearing surface in the water environment.
Recently, the fretting-related degradations in SG tube
materials are reported from many nuclear power plants.
The main causes are both flow-induced vibration (FIV)
between tube and support materials and the loose parts
which randomly impact against the tube. Previous studies [15,16] were focused on the evaluation of the wear
coefficient in a work-rate model to calculate the exact
degradation rate for the estimation of residual lifetime. In
spite of the widely recognized importance of wear coefficients in SG fretting wear, there has been relatively little
effort made to understand wear mechanisms. The authors
[17] have performed the wear test of SG tube materials in
the room temperature air environment, in which the wear
coefficients and the role of wear particle layers in the SG
tube materials such as Inconel 600MA and 690TT were
analyzed.
In the present work, fretting wear experiment was performed with SG tube materials against ferritic stainless
steels in room temperature water. The objective was to
examine the possible wear mechanisms before high temperature and pressure experiments. The discussion was
focused on the relationship between the subsurface deformation and wear rate or wear coefficient K in the work-rate
model.

2. Experimental procedure
The alloys used in this study were Inconel 600MA and
690TT (abbreviated to 600MA and 690TT); these commercial nickel-based alloys have been used as SG tube materials in nuclear power plants. Their microstructures are
shown in Fig. 1. The counterpart materials were selected as
405 and 409 ferritic stainless steel (abbreviated to 405SS
and 409SS) because those are used as tube support materials in the operating power plants. Chemical composition and bulk hardness of tested materials are shown in
Table 1.
A reciprocating wear apparatus with tube-on-plate configuration was utilized and details of this test system is described in the previous studies [17]. In this test, a water tank
is equipped so that the fretting experiment can be conducted
in 25 C distilled water. The dimensions of the tube specimen were 19.05 mm in diameter and 14 mm in length and

Fig. 1. Microstructure of tested tubes: (a) Inconel 600MA; (b) Inconel

690TT.

the counter-specimens were prepared from the flat strip. The

friction load and fretting amplitude between sliding surfaces
were continuously monitored during the wear test. The wear
losses were determined from the weight measurements before and after the experiments using an analytical balance
with an accuracy of the order of 0.1 mg. Prior to each test
and weighing measurement, the specimens were acoustically
cleaned in acetone for 5 min and dried in compressed air.
The tube specimen oscillates with a peak-to-peak amplitude

Table 1
Chemical composition and bulk hardness of SG tubes and their support materials
Specimen

Cr

Fe

Si

Mn

Ti

Co

Ni

Hardness (HV)

600MA
690TT
405SS
409SS

16.81
29.5
11.514.5
10.511.75

9.1
10.4
Balance
Balance

0.026
0.02
0.08
0.08

0.32
0.33
1.00
1.00

0.81
0.26
1.00
1.00

0.35
0.32
0.1 (Al)
0.5

0.008
0.004
0.04
0.045

0.002
0.001
0.03
0.045

0.012
0.012

Balance
Balance

194
193
215
229

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Y.-H. Lee, I.-S. Kim / Wear 253 (2002) 438447

of 50400 m at a frequency of 30 Hz. The applied normal

load was 1040 N. In the present study, distilled water was
used for the environment and the wear experiments were
performed at 25 C.
To evaluate the wear mechanism in the water environment,
the worn surfaces and cross-sections below the contact surface were examined using a scanning electron microscopy
(SEM) after tests. Also, nano-indentation tests were performed to assess the resistance to plastic deformation in the
subsurface of the tube materials. Recently, a work-rate model
has been used for the wear evaluation of SG tubes [15]. The
work-rate is used to normalize the wear rate and is defined
as the rate of energy being dissipated at the contact [16]. It

gives the following expression for the lifetime evaluation of

SG tubes:

W = F ds
(1)
V = K W

(2)

where V is wear rate, W the work-rate, F the normal load,

s the sliding distance and K is the wear coefficient. Thus,
from the test results, wear coefficients (K, defined as the
total volume loss per normal load and per total sliding
distance) were calculated and compared between the test
conditions.

Fig. 2. Effect of normal load on the specific wear rate (Vs , mg/m) of SG tube materials: (a) Inconel 600MA; (b) Inconel 690TT.

Y.-H. Lee, I.-S. Kim / Wear 253 (2002) 438447

3. Experimental results and discussion

3.1. Wear rate and wear coefficients of work-rate model
Fig. 2 show the relationship between applied normal load
and specific wear rate (weight loss per sliding distance,
mg/m) of tube materials in water environment. The sliding
amplitude and number of cycles have been changed at each
test condition. The specific wear rate slowly increased for
both tube materials and showed much scattering of values
with increasing normal load. Fig. 3 shows the effect of sliding distance on the mass loss of the tube materials at the

441

same load. With increasing sliding distance, the wear rate,

which is the slope of the tangent to the curve, was slowly
decreased. Hence, the fretting wear rate does not linearly
increase with sliding distance. Fig. 4 shows the calculated
wear coefficient, K, in the work-rate model of SG tube materials. 600MA has similar values with two support materials. Average wear coefficients, K, are 56.1 1015 Pa1 for
405SS and 58.1 1015 Pa1 for 409SS. But, with 690TT,
the wear coefficient, K, shows a much low value (K =
18.5 1015 Pa1 ) when the support material is selected
as 409SS. However, when we compare the average values
of wear coefficient (K) in the work-rate model, 600MA has

Fig. 3. The variation of mass loss of SG tube materials with sliding distance at the same load condition: (a) Inconel 600MA against 405 stainless steel;
(b) Inconel 690TT against 409 stainless steel. Wear rate slowly decreases at both materials with increasing sliding distance.

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Fig. 4. Wear coefficient K in the work-rate model from test results: (a) Inconel 600MA; (b) Inconel 690TT. The more resistant condition in room
temperature water is Inconel 690TT against 409 stainless steel.

about twice the value as with 690TT in room temperature

water environment.
Generally, the wear transition phenomena are closely
related with the formation of wear particle layers in an air
environment. But, Hiratsuka et al. [18] pointed out that
the initial steady wear transition was also observed during
rubbing in a vacuum. He emphasized that the oxide film is
not a necessary condition for establishing steady-state wear.
Therefore, there seems to be two possibilities for these lower
wear rates with increasing sliding distance. One is due to
wear particles remaining in the contact surface. Even if it is
expected that the generated wear particles are easily removed
between contact surfaces in water environment during sliding, wear particles could be adhered to the worn surface due

to other factors such as magnetization on the worn surface.

The other is the change in hardness of surface or subsurface.
From the previous study [19], when the subsurfaces were
hardened to the same extent as the transfer particles and
wear particles, the wear mode changed to the steady-state
wear. To confirm the magnetization effect between wear
particles and worn surface, we measured the magnetic field
at the worn surface. As a result, the intensity of magnetic
field is almost the same before and after wear test and these
effects could be ignored in those experiments. So, in water
environment, wear rate of tube materials are determined by
the variation of mechanical properties, such as work hardening, abilities of strain accommodation, etc., between contact
surfaces.

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443

Fig. 5. Variation of friction coefficient during wear test. After 10 000 cycles, friction coefficient of Inconel 690TT slowly decreased.

3.2. Variation of friction coefficients

Fig. 5 shows the variation of friction coefficient during
fretting wear test. In the case of 690TT against 405SS, the
friction coefficient decreased rapidly at the beginning of the
tests and decreased slowly after around 10000 cycles. If
the difference of initial friction coefficient originates from
the difference of roughness of the tube surfaces, these will
be eliminated at the beginning of test. Therefore, the friction
coefficient of 690TT decreases at a slower rate with increas-

ing cycles. In the case of 600MA, friction coefficients fluctuated in the regions from 0.5 to 0.55. However, the general
trend of these friction curves show that there is little change
of friction coefficient in 600MA, but show some decrease
in 690TT with increasing cycles.
If the contact surface became harder due to severe plastic deformation, the contact area under the same load may
decrease and consequently the friction coefficient will decrease. From the results, we deduced that 690TT experiences
more work-hardening on its worn surface. Also, if wear

Fig. 6. The effect of shear load on the specific wear rate of SG tube materials. Note the reduction of scattering as compared to Fig. 2 when friction
coefficient was correlated to wear rate.

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particles were released from the worn surface after severe

plastic deformation and fracture, the shear load, which is
generated by friction force on worn surface, is dominantly
related to deformation and fracture. Therefore, to identify
the relationship between specific wear rate and shear load,
we expressed wear rate against shear load, which was correlated with friction coefficient in Fig. 6. In this figure, much
of scattering as shown in Fig. 2 disappeared and specific
wear rate is linearly increased with shear load. So, we deduced that wear rate of tubes in water is determined by the
abilities of strain accommodation on contact surfaces because this is closely related with the generation rate of wear
particles. Fouvry et al. [20] proposed the wear energy approach correlating friction coefficient during fretting wear
and showed a linear relationship between dissipated energy
and wear volume. Therefore, the wear coefficient (K) of
the work-rate model for the lifetime evaluation of SG tubes
should reflect wear mechanism in water condition and this
could be archived by the correlation of wear coefficient with
friction coefficient.
3.3. Worn surface and subsurface observation
In the previous test results in air condition [17], wear
rate and wear coefficients were dependent on the tribological properties of wear particle layers that were agglomerated
on the worn surface of SG tubes. However, Fig. 7 shows
that almost all wear particles were removed and their layer
was not observable any more in water condition. The worn
surface was fractured in thin plate form and wear particles
seem to be released from the edge of these layers. Therefore, they do not stay between contact surfaces for a long
time and metal-to-metal contact is dominant. In the present
experiment, the roles of water lubricant are to restrain the
formation of wear particle layers as well as to remove easily
the wear particles when they reach a critical size.
In Fig. 7, it seems apparent that the worn surfaces consisted of fractured thin plates, which were generated from
the severe plastic deformation during wear. In 600MA, the
thickness of those thin plates was about 23 m and cracks
appeared under the worn surface in a perpendicular direction. But, in case of 690TT, the thickness of these plates
and generated wear particles are relatively small and it is
difficult to observe the crack in the direction of depth on
the worn surface. Fig. 8 shows cross-sections of worn surfaces in two tube materials. The plastic deformation layer
apparently appeared and they have specific thickness which
is very small compared with their grain sizes as shown in
Fig. 1. Besides, microcracks before wear particles propagate
in deformed layer and not in grain boundaries. This means
that if wear particles are generated by the fracture of these
thin plates due to the hardness differences between upper
and lower plates after severe plastic deformation, wear rate
difference of two tube materials is, therefore, closely related
with resistance to plastic deformation near worn surface during wear.

Fig. 7. SEM micrographs of the worn surfaces of SG tube materials after

wear test: (a) Inconel 600MA; (b) Inconel 690TT.

The hardness distribution in subsurface regions was

measured. Since severe deformation was observed in these
regions, nano-indentation tests were performed to depth direction from worn surface. On each tube specimen, hardness
tests were performed at three different locations and the
average values are plotted in Fig. 9. The standard deviations
of the mean values were about 20% of the mean. Before the
wear test, two tube materials have similar hardness values.
But the hardness of 690TT near the worn surface rapidly
increased with respect to that of 600MA and this hardness
difference gradually reduced with increasing distance from
worn surface.
600MA and 690TT both have a single phase with stable face-centered cubic (fcc) structured up to temperatures
of 1000 C and they have chromium carbides in the grain
boundaries, such as dominant types of Cr7 C3 for 600MA and
Cr23 C6 for 690TT [2123]. Unlike austenite stainless steels
that could be transformed to martensitic structures during
sliding wear, these tube materials seem to maintain the initial phase. So, it is expected that the dislocation structure
changes to accommodate the large strains generated during
fretting wear. From the study of Rigney and Glaeser [24],

Y.-H. Lee, I.-S. Kim / Wear 253 (2002) 438447

Fig. 8. The subsurface observation using SEM: (a) Inconel 600MA; (b)
Inconel 690TT. Each tube material has plastic deformation layers with
specific thickness formed during wear.

445

the repeated ploughing of asperity contacts over a mating

surface can produce high dislocation densities and eventually change the microstructure to a cell-type structure found
in heavily deformed metals; the cell size depending on material characteristics such as stacking fault energy (SFE), the
applied stress and the temperature.
The most significant difference in the chemical composition between 600MA and 690TT is chromium contents:
690TT has twice the chromium content (30 w/o) for the
benefit of corrosion resistance. From the result of Symons
study [25] about the effect of chromium content on the SFE
of NiXCrFe alloy, he proposed that SFE rapidly decreased
with increasing chromium contents in nickel-base alloys. If
the material has high SFE, then dislocation climb and cross
slip are easier and the tangled cell walls are well formed.
The cell structure may be entirely absent in low SFE materials. However, at high strains cells could develop even
for low SFE materials, but the cell sizes slowly decreased
to a very thin layer near worn surface. Also, they proposed
that a cell structure can present many suitable pathways for
subsurface crack generation and the release of thin wear
flakes [24]. So, 690TT has relatively low SFE due to high
chromium content and is not easy to develop cell structures.
But at high strain region such as worn surface, small size
cell could develop near worn surface. Therefore, when wear
particles are separated due to microcracks which are dominantly propagated to cell boundaries, wear particle size is
larger in 690MA than in 690TT at worn surface as shown in
Fig. 7.
Thompson [26] proposed that yield strength is weakly
dependent on grain size below 1 m and this behavior
was compared to yielding in a cell-type structure. So, cell

Fig. 9. Microhardness variation beneath the worn surfaces of SG tube materials.

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Y.-H. Lee, I.-S. Kim / Wear 253 (2002) 438447

structures were much stronger because the relatively short

sources in cell walls caused higher yield strengths than the
long sources in normal grain boundaries. This means that
690TT with relatively small cell size from Symons study
shows high hardening behavior on its worn surface and low
wear rate in room temperature water because cell structure
could easily accommodate large strains.
In addition to the measurements of hardness distributions
below worn surface, plastic deformation energy was calculated to examine the relationship between hardened layer and
wear properties. The plastic deformation energy is defined
as the closed loop of loaddisplacement curve as shown in
Fig. 10. The plastic deformation energies per unit volume

at the depth of 15 m from worn surface were calculated as

6.73 J mm3 for 600MA and 7.58 J mm3 for 690TT. The
result indicates that about 15% more energy was needed
to produce the same deformation volume in 690TT than in
600MA and could be connected to the low wear rate of materials. Also, the deformed layer should be propagated to the
depth direction in order to maintain the specific thickness as
shown in Fig. 8 as wear particles are continuously removed
on the worn surface during wear. Therefore, the wear rate of
SG tube materials in room temperature water is determined
by the balance between the rate of wear particle removal on
the worn surface and the formation rate of plastic deformation layers in the subsurface.

Fig. 10. LoadIndentation depth plots of SG tube materials in subsurface. The closed areas represent the plastic deformation energy during nano-indentation
tests.

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4. Conclusions
Fretting wear behaviors of SG tube materials against ferritic stainless steels were investigated in room temperature
water. The following conclusions are drawn;
1. With increasing normal load and sliding distance, 690TT
has low wear rate compared with 600MA in room temperature water. This result is mainly related to the changing
mechanical properties of the tube materials during wear.
2. Wear particles are mostly removed from worn surface
after severe plastic deformation and fracture. Thus, it is
possible to relate the wear rate to shear load in room temperature water because stress component causing plastic
deformation and fracture is mainly shear type.
3. The worn surface examination confirmed that wear particles are ejected in the form of thin plates on worn surface. Main cause is the difference of SFE with chromium
contents between Inconel 600MA and 690TT and this
is closely related to the formation of cell-type structure
that could easily accommodate large strains. Also, plastic deformation layers appear in subsurface of both tube
materials, which have specific thickness and are small
compared with their grain sizes.
4. In room temperature water, the wear rate of SG tube
materials is determined by the balance between the removal rates of wear particles from the worn surface and
the formation rate of plastic deformation layers in the
subsurface.
Acknowledgements
This research was partially supported by the Brain Korea
21 project and Korea Electric Power Research Institute of
Korea Electric Power Corporation.
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