Crack arrest toughness of a heat-affected zone containing local brittle zones
- Fleet Technology Ltd., Kanata, Ontario (Canada)
- Graville Associates Inc., Georgetown, Ontario (Canada)
- CANMET, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada). Metals Technology Labs.
The awareness of the presence of local brittle zones (LBZs) in the heat-affected zone (HAZ) of welds has led to the requirements for minimum initiation toughness for the HAZ for critical applications. A fracture control philosophy that is proposed to be an attractive alternative for heat-affected zones containing LBZs is the prevention of crack propagation rather than of crack initiation. Such an approach would be viable if it could be demonstrated that cracks initiated in the LBZs will be arrested without causing catastrophic failure, notwithstanding the low initiation (CTOD) toughness resulting from the presence of LBZs. Unstable propagation of a crack initiating from an LBZ requires the rupture of tougher microstructural regions surrounding the LBZ in HAZ, and therefore the CTOD value reflecting the presence of LBZ is unlikely to provide a true indication of the potential for fast fracture along the heat-affected zone. Base metal specifications usually ensure that small unstable cracks propagating from the weld zone into the base metal would be arrested. To investigate the likelihood of fast fracture within the HAZ, a test program has been carried out that involved performing compact plane strain and plane stress crack arrest tests on a heat-affected zone that contained LBZs, and thus exhibited unacceptable low CTOD toughness for resistance to brittle fracture initiation. The results indicated that the crack arrest toughness was little influenced by the presence of local brittle zones. Instead, the superior toughness of the larger proportion of finer-grain HAZ surrounding the LBZ present along the crack path has a greater influence on the crack arrest toughness.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Government of Canada, Ottawa, ON (Canada)
- OSTI ID:
- 415690
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, Vol. 118, Issue 4; Other Information: PBD: Nov 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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