Constraint Effect on Fracture Mechanics Evaluation for an Under-Clad Crack in a Reactor Pressure Vessel Steel

For structural integrity assessment of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) in JEAC 4206-2016, it is required that the fracture toughness (K_Jc) be higher than the stress intensity factor at the crack tip of a postulated under-clad crack (UCC) near the inner surface of RPV steel under the pressurized thermal shock event. Previous analytical studies showed a low constraint effect at the crack tip of an UCC, compared with that of a normal surface crack. Such a low constraint effect may increase the apparent K_Jc. In this study, we performed three-point bending (3PB) fracture toughness tests and finite element analysis (FEA) for RPV steel containing an UCC or a surface crack to quantitatively investigate the effect of cladding on the K_Jc. The FEAs considering the anisotropic property of the cladding successfully reproduced the load vs. load-line displacement curves obtained from the tests. We found that the apparent K_Jc for the UCC was considerably higher than that for the surface crack. FEA also showed that the constraint effect for the 3PB test specimen with the UCC was lower than that for the specimen with the surface crack owing to the cladding. Thus, a low constraint effect from an UCC may increase the apparent K_Jc.