On the use of miniaturized ct specimens for fracture toughness characterization of RPV materials: PVP2016-63607

The tendency to reduce specimen size for fracture toughness characterization of structural materials is gaining a spectaculair interest in particular for irradiated materials. Indeed, the miniaturized compact tension (mini-CT) with a size of 10x10x4.2 mm is becoming very popular. With such a small volume, a large number of mini CT specimens can be extracted from broken Charpy impact specimens and therefore mlakes this geometry very attractive and consequently several round robin exercises are organized to quality this geometry. SCK•CEN has gained a lot of experience since the first usage of this geometry more than a decade ago. This geometry was qualified and tested in both unirradiated as well as irradiated condition. This paper overviews the SCK•CEN experience using the mini-CT geometry for fracture toughness characterization. In particular, it discusses the reliability of this geometry in comparison to large specimens such as the precracked Charpy and compares the advantages and limitations of such a geometry to derive some recommendation.