Assessment of the fracture behavior of weld material from a full-thickness clad RPV shell segment
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
A testing program is described that utilizes full-thickness clad beam specimens to quantify fracture toughness for shallow cracks in material for which metallurgical conditions are prototypic of those found in reactor pressure vessels (RPVs). The beam specimens are fabricated from a section of an RPV shell (removed from a canceled nuclear plant) that includes weld, plate, and clad material. A summary of the testing program includes a description of the specimen geometry, material properties, the testing procedure, and the experimental results from three specimens. The yield strength of the weld material was determined to be 36% higher than the base material. The high yield strength for prototypic weld material may be implications for RPV integrity assessments. Fracture toughness data from three clad beam specimens are compared with other shallow- and deep-crack beam cruciform data generated previously from A 533 Grade B plate material. Difficulties with interpreting lower-bound fracture toughness curves constructed from the shallow-crack data are essentially resolved by adopting a single normalizing temperature parameter, namely, the nil-ductility transition temperature (NDT).
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-84OR21400
- OSTI ID:
- 122618
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-950740--; ISBN 0-7918-1335-5
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Fracture behavior of shallow cracks in full-thickness clad beams from an RPV wall section
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Related Subjects
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COMPOSITE MATERIALS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FILLER METALS
FRACTURE MECHANICS
FRACTURE PROPERTIES
MECHANICAL TESTS
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
PRESSURE VESSELS
PWR TYPE REACTORS
RELIABILITY
STAINLESS STEELS
STEEL-ASTM-A533-B
WELDED JOINTS