Determination of the toughness of a low alloy steel from the Charpy V-notch impact testing

Charpy V-notch (CVN) impact testing is widely used to characterize the resistance of a material to brittle fracture, by measuring the energy consumed by a specimen during impact. Notably materials undergoing a ductile-to-brittle transition, e.g. ferritic steels, are quality controlled by means of CVN testing, and their ductile-to-brittle transition temperature can be determined. Charpy testing is also widely used in the toughness assessment of large forged components, e.g. pressure vessels for pressurised water reactors (PWR). However, currently no satisfactory link between the Charpy impact energy CVN and the fracture toughness KIc exists. This study aims to establish a non-empirical relationship between the Charpy V-notch energy CVN, and the fracture toughness KIc, on the lower shelf of fracture toughness and the onset of the ductile-to-brittle transition of a A508 Cl.3 steel. The methodology employed is based on the so-called 'local approach'. Brittle cleavage fracture is modelled in terms of the Beremin (1983) model based on 'weakest link' statistics, whereas ductile crack advance preceding cleavage in the transition region is accounted for with the GTN model (Gurson, 1977; Tvergaard, 1982; Tvergaard and Needleman, 1984). Mechanical testing at different strain rates allowed for the establishment of the constitutive equations of the material in an elastic-viscoplastic formulation. Fracture tests on different specimen geometries provided the large data set necessary for statistical evaluation. All specimen types have been modelled with finite element analysis. However, the dynamic nature of the Charpy test requires special consideration. The origin of these dynamic effects was studied, as well as their implications on interpretation of experimental results and on modeling. After a proper modeling procedure had been defined, the local approach was employed for studying fracture. It is found that the fracture toughness can be predicted from the Charpy impact test, on the lower shelf. Towards higher fracture toughness, the parameters of the Beremin model change, losing their universality. Detailed fractographic investigations show that the nature of 'weak spots' inducing cleavage fracture changes with temperature. Furthermore, the local cleavage fracture stress acting on these 'weak spots' was found to change with temperature. The results are in agreement with those obtained by Renevey (1997) in a previous study on the same material. Thus it is concluded that the Beremin model must be refined in order to be applicable in the ductile-to-brittle transition region. (author)