Abstract: Stress relaxation behavior of two turbine bolt steels was evaluated by the manualcontrolled tensile stress relaxation test (TSRT) at high temperature. First, feasibility and the procedure of the manual-controlled tensile stress relaxation test (TSRT) is discussed and carried out on a general creep testing machine. And then, the experimental results from such type of test were compared to the existing data provided by certain Laboratory U.K. Overall good agreement between the results of manualcontrolled TSRT method and the existing data provides confidence in the use of the proposed method in practice. Finally, the experimental results of turbine bolt steels from TSRT were compared with that of bending test. It is observed that great difference exists between the results from two different type stress relaxation tests. It is therefore suggested that the results from TSRT method be adopted in turbine bolt design in engineering.

Key words: tensile stress-relaxation test, bending stress-relaxation test, turbine bolt steels