Abstract
Experimental measurements of the cleavage fracture toughness (KJc) of specimens were
used to apply the Master Curve (MC) approach to a reference RPV steel A533B Cl.1 provided
by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as part of the surveillance programs of
two BWR Units. This investigation focused on four practical issues: the effect of specimen
geometry, loading rate and irradiation on the MC and the comparison of the MC to the conventional
approach using Charpy data. Experiments on pre-cracked Charpy V-notch (PCCv)
specimens validated the use of the Weibull model allowing correcting for the loss of constraint
effect. These experiments were also used to determine the ‘‘bias’’ value between
PCCv and standard compact tension (1T-C(T)) specimens and the effect of the loading rate
on the MC. The reference temperatures indexed to T0 (RTTo and ARTTo) were directly
measured and compared to the RTNDT and ARTNDT values obtained using the conventional
semi-empirical approach of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Code,
demonstrating that the latter approach was more conservative.
Details
Original language | English |
---|
Pages (from-to) | 97-115 |
---|
Journal | Engineering Fracture Mechanics |
---|
Volume | 119 |
---|
DOIs | |
---|
Publication status | Published - Feb 2014 |
---|