Fracture Analysis of Ductile-Brittle Transition Temperature Region Considering Specimens With Different Constraints

Fracture toughness from a CT specimen is used as a material constant for fracture evaluation, but it has a large constraint, which provides too conservative evaluation results. In ductile to brittle transition temperature (DBTT) region ferritic steel which is material of RPV has a large scatter and it becomes important to know the accurate scatter of an irradiated material because of less margin of RPV’s integrity after a long term operation. In this paper to establish a more precise fracture evaluation method in DBTT region for an irradiated RPV with a postulated surface flaw, fracture analysis procedures considering constraint effect, the Beremin model and damage mechanics model and a coupled model of these models were applied to the specimens with different constraints, which were 1/2TCT specimens and flat plate specimens with a semicircular flaw under tensile load. For evaluation of pure cleavage fracture of flat plate specimens, a Beremin model with plastic strain effect was applied with incorporation of plastic strain effect. Further, for ductile fracture, the local strain criterion of ASME Section VIII was applied to the specimens with different geometries and its applicability was discussed.