Use of Mini-CT Specimens for Fracture Toughness Characterization of Low Upper-Shelf Linde 80 Weld

Any fracture toughness specimen that can be made out of the broken halves of standard Charpy specimens may have exceptional utility for evaluation of reactor pressure vessels since it would allow one to determine and monitor directly actual fracture toughness instead of requiring indirect predictions using correlations established with impact data. The Charpy V-notch specimen is the most commonly used specimen geometry in surveillance programs and most likely to be used in advanced reactors as per ASME code. The advantage of the Mini-CT specimen technique is that multiple specimens can be machined from one half of a broken Charpy specimen, used in a standard surveillance capsule of a reactor pressure vessel. Up to now, most of the work on validation of this type of the specimens has been performed on base metal. In this study, Mini-CT specimens were used to perform fracture toughness characterization of low upper-shelf Linde 80 weld, designated WF-70. This weld was utilized in the Midland beltline weld and has been previously well characterized at ORNL with various types and sizes of fracture toughness specimens. The Mini-CT specimens were machined from broken previously tested Charpy V-notch specimens. Despite very small size and relatively small number of Mini-CT specimen tested, the transition fracture toughness temperature, To, derived from these Mini-CT specimens is in very good correspondence with To reported from analysis of a large number of larger fracture toughness specimens.

Three-Dimensional Dynamic Explicit Finite Element Analysis of Charpy Impact Test

Dynamic explicit finite element (FE) analysis of the Charpy impact test was conducted in this study to investigate the inertial effect on the stress field ahead of the V-notch in a Charpy specimen. The deformation behavior of the Charpy specimen and the constraint effect on the stress field in the plastic zone near the V-notch were numerically simulated using three-dimensional FE analysis, while considering the contact of the specimen with the striker and anvil. The effect of the strain rate on the flow stress and the increase in temperature during impact loading were included in the dynamic analysis. This analysis shows that the impact load exhibits oscillation and the contact stiffness between the specimen and the striker affects the oscillation of the impact load. The analysis was validated by comparison with experimental results obtained using an instrumented Charpy impact testing machine, which measured the impact load and the load point displacement. The oscillation of the load–time curve was recorded. The magnitude and period of the peak inertia load obtained by the FE analysis were almost consistent with the experimental results. The contact stiffness between the specimen and the striker affected the stress field near the V-notch in the specimen. This indicates that the stress field in the Charpy specimen should be analyzed by the dynamic analysis procedure considering the contact stiffness based on the Hertzian contact theory.

CTOA Test Method Using Drop-Weight Tear Test (DWTT): Background and Development of Standard

Arrest of fast ductile fracture in the design of gas pipelines has traditionally been assured by specifying Charpy absorbed energy (Cv) of pipe steel based on the Battelle two-curve method. However, the Charpy test has been shown to be inadequate to characterize crack propagation in modern high-strength, high-toughness pipe steels. For steels with Cv more than approximately 100 J, fracture arrest methodologies based on Cv can lead to non-conservative predictions. The problem is that the Charpy specimen is too small to characterize full-scale fracture, and for tough steels the ductility can be so high that the Charpy specimen bends without fracturing completely. To overcome these limitations, the use of a larger full-thickness specimen, the “Drop-Weight Tear Test” (DWTT) specimen, has been proposed. The test is instrumented to measure the force on and displacement of the impactor during crack propagation. The data is interpreted to yield the “crack-tip opening angle” (CTOA), which is constant during steady-state crack growth and characterizes the propagation resistance. The CTOA has been proposed for some time as a suitable property to assess fracture propagation and arrest in high-pressure gas pipelines, but up to now a standard test method for measurement of the CTOA has not been available. To remedy this situation, a draft standard has been developed by the authors and is being balloted by ASTM E081. In this paper, the CTOA parameter and CTOA-based fracture arrest methodology will be introduced briefly. The background and development of the draft ASTM standard test method for determination of CTOA using the drop-weight tear test (DWTT) specimen will be reviewed including the procedure and the results of an international round robin. In the CTOA test method, the only adjustable parameter is the rotation factor (rp). Using a modified Xue-Wierzbicki damage mechanics model and a statistical analysis, rp has been determined to be a weak function of yield strength, Charpy absorbed energy and specimen thickness. Although no physical model has been developed to explain the interplay of these factors, they are all related to the extent and distribution of plastic deformation ahead of the crack. The technical background and quantification of rp will be described in this paper. It is intended to apply the CTOA test method to a broad range of steels, including thin (less than 6 mm) and thick (larger than 20 mm) pipe steels.

An Updated Fracture Resistance Dataset of Pipeline Ductile Fracture Propagation Based on High Speed DWTT Tests

One of the major research topics in the area of gas pipeline fracture control is the suitability of using Charpy energy for ductile fracture control for modern and/or high strength line pipes. A common understanding is that, for pipe body crack self-arresting, the deviation of the actual required Charpy energy from those predicted using the traditional procedure of Battelle Two-Curve Method (TCM) is getting larger with higher strength pipes. DWTT is being paid more attention to because of its larger and full thickness specimen that can better capture the fracture process than a Charpy specimen does. Previous work at TransCanada indicated that various fracture speeds can be achieved in DWTT specimens and it is the steady-state fracture speed that is representative to the actual fracture propagation in a gas pipeline. It has also been found that the steady-state fracture toughness, in terms of either fracture energy or CTOA, is fracture speed dependent with lower fracture toughness for higher fracture speeds. Previous analysis also indicated by considering the speed dependent toughness, better predictions can be obtained for both self-arresting fracture toughness requirement and the fracture propagation speed. Previous DWTT fracture toughness data published by the authors exhibited a strong speed dependence and it was demonstrated that if the actual speed dependence is plugged into the modified TCM, both the fracture toughness and fracture speed would be over predicted. The assumption was that the original TCM was calibrated using pipe fracture data that also had speed dependent fracture toughness but the speed dependence was less strong than those for the modern pipes. This paper presents an updated DWTT fracture dataset that expands the previously published data by adding high speed DWTT test results of modern line pipe steels with a range of grades X70-X100 and three old vintage pipe materials that is representative to the pipes that were used for the original TCM testing and calibration. The toughness data for the low grade pipes also shows speed dependence which purports the previous assumption.

An Engineering Procedure for Calculating Cleavage Fracture Toughness From Charpy Specimen Data Using a Mechanistic Approach for Ferritic Steels

This research develops an engineering approach which permits the treatment of Charpy specimen absorbed energy data in the lower transition of Charpy specimen fracture behaviour. The procedure has been shown to be applicable to a ferritic steel study material. The calculation method comprises several steps to correct the input Charpy data to the equivalent material fracture toughness of a ferritic steel under consideration. The engineering procedure develops existing methods for constraint and notch correction to data [Sherry et al, EFM 2005] [Horn and Sherry, IJPVP 2012]. Micromechanical modeling of cleavage fracture behaviour has been applied in conjunction with sequential experimental testing. This work addresses the important geometric differences between a single edge notch bend, SEN(B), fracture toughness specimen and the standard Charpy V-notch specimen. The engineering approach is demonstrated using a suitable study ferritic steel material and by undertaking an experimental laboratory testing programme comprising standard fracture toughness specimens and non-standard U-notch and V-notch Charpy sized specimens with a range of notch geometries. It has been found that constraint and notch assessment methodologies premised upon micro-mechanical modeling of cleavage fracture offer an accurate probabilistic description of fracture behaviour in these specimen geometries. Refinement of a notch angle correction is necessary within the procedure. These findings permit the extension of the approach to develop a material specific guidance to practitioners undertaking structural integrity assessments. The final extension of the research to Charpy impact data requires the measurement of ferritic steel material flow behaviour under dynamic conditions and represents further research.

Prediction of SENB Fracture Toughness From Charpy Data Using the Beremin Model in the Lower Transition Region

This work focuses on the application of a mechanistic local approach model to describe the statistical distribution of experimental Charpy (CVN) impact test data obtained at several temperatures in the ductile to brittle transition temperature range. The current objective is to develop a correlation in the lower transition regime between quasi-static CVN absorbed energy (CVE) and the J-integral fracture toughness (Jc) obtained from deeply pre-cracked Charpy (PCCVN) specimens tested quasi-statically to laboratory test standards. The Beremin model for cleavage fracture has been applied to a ferritic steel which has been comprehensively tested using standard CVN, shallow U-notched and PCCVN specimen types in the lower ductile to brittle transition. This has enabled a prediction to be made of the absorbed CVE at cleavage fracture initiation for a Charpy specimen tested quasi-statically in the lower part of the CVN transition curve. By applying the Beremin model to PCCVN single edge notch bend specimens at quasi-static rates it was possible to use the Weibull stress, to achieve a reliable correlation between CVE and Jc in the lower ductile to brittle transition region. The results from this work indicate that the Beremin model can provide a theoretically based correlation for CVE to Jc fracture toughness for a ferritic steel under quasi-static loading conditions. The overall objective of the project remains to predict dynamic CVN absorbed energy using micromechanical modelling and which is valid for all ferritic steels.