An improved method to identify grain boundary creep cavitation in 316H austenitic stainless steel

Inter-granular creep cavitation damage has been observed in an ex-service 316H austenitic stainless steel thick section weldment. Focused ion beam cross-section milling combined with ion channelling contrast imaging is used to identify the cavitation damage, which is usually associated with the grain boundary carbide precipitates in this material. The results demonstrate that this technique can identify, in particular, the early stage of grain boundary creep cavitation unambiguously in materials with complex phase constituents.