Abstract
Broken Charpy specimens from the surveillance program of a Belgian nuclear power plant are
used to obtain the fracture toughness in the transition regime using the master curve concept. Two approaches
are used. The first one is based on the reconstitution of Charpy specimens that are subsequently
precracked and tested in three-point bending. The second approach is an innovative one that makes use of
miniature Compact Tension specimens, which are machined from the broken pieces of the original Charpy
specimens. Both approaches lead to consistent results. The recently developed miniature Compact Tension
design has the advantage to use less material and is less costly in terms of machining operation. For
the material investigated in this research, the current regulation, based on a semi-empirical approach to
obtain the lower bound fracture toughness, is demonstrated to be conservative as compared to the direct
fracture toughness determination.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Journal of ASTM International |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 2 |
State | Published - 1 Dec 2005 |