NESC VII European Project: Demonstration of Warm Pre-Stressing Effect in Biaxial Loading Conditions: Bending Tests on 18MND5 Cruciform Specimens and Their Interpretation

In the framework of the NESC VII European project, a large experimental program has been dedicated to characterize the Warm Pre-Stressing (WPS) effect in different testing configurations. One of the CEA (France) contributions to this project is the realization of five point bending tests on large cruciform specimens considering different WPS loading cycles. The five cruciform specimens, sponsored by EDF (France) and IRSN (France), are made of 18MND5 steel. Two of them have been tested on a same LCF (Load-Cool-Fracture) loading cycle and two others on the same LCTF (Load-Cool-Transient-Fracture) loading cycle. The experimental results presented in this paper give a successful demonstration of the WPS effect in biaxial loading conditions either on a LCF or on a LCTF cycle. During the test interpretations, different models have then been tested and compared in order to evaluate their ability to predict the cleavage fracture in the case of different WPS loading cycles. They all provide very conservative predictions whatever loading cycle is concerned.