Influence of the specimen configuration and the insert material on fracture toughness characterisation with reconstituted specimens

Specimen reconstitution techniques offer the possibility to obtain fracture toughness measurements when only small amounts of material are available. In order to obtain extra information from Charpy specimens, an electron-beam weld reconstitution method is established to obtain compact tension specimens (CT) from the broken halves of the charpy ones. Three types of reconstituted CT specimens with different weld configurations are tested in order to analyse the influence of specimen configuration on fracture toughness evaluation. The validity of the fracture toughness characterisation is analysed by comparing J-integral resistance curves (J-R curves) of specimens with insert and those of reference specimens without insert. (orig.)