Simplified evaluation of J integral in cylinders under thermal loading

This paper presents a method developed by E.D.F. to compute J integral in cylinders under linear thermal gradients and thermal transients. Both austenitic and ferritic steels are considered. A large number of elastoplastic computations and ferritic steels are considered. A large number of elastoplastic computations of surface cracked cylinders with numerous crack sizes, thicknesses, and axisymmetric thermal loadings (linear thermal gradients, thermal shocks) allows to propose an elastoplastic correction of Je elastic. Four curves give an upper bound of Kth for linear gradients and thermal shocks, for ferritic or austenitic steels. This study confirms the fact that J integral due to thermal loadings . This simplified method will be codified in the RSE-M Code. (author) 2 refs., 9 figs., 1 tab