Size correction scheme to determine fracture toughness with mini-CT geometry in the transition regime

The mini-CT geometry is used to determine relevant fracture toughness data along with the master curve description within the transition regime. However, due to significant loss of constraint experienced at loadings close to J-levels corresponding to the reference temperature T0, the current size correction scheme from ASTM E1921 standard requires a better assessment in order to avoid censoring a large number of mini-CT specimens. Indeed, the current tight ASTM E1921 requirements on the KJc limit value set to ensure that the computed transition temperature T0 is reliable often implies that many samples have to be censored. A large number of censored specimens leads to a significant loss of time, money and material, and of unnecessary activated material in the case of irradiated specimens. Besides, because of the specimen size reduction, more mini-CT samples and lower test temperatures as compared to large sized samples are required to determine a reliable T0 value. In this study, an improved specimen size correction associated to the mini-CT geometry is proposed based on a local approach of brittle fracture combined with FEM simulations. The results show that the proposed size correction reduces the T0 bias compared to the 1T-CT geometry. It also contributes to relaxing the KJc limit for the mini-CT geometry as compared to the ASTM size corrected values.