FALSIRE results for NKS-3 and NKS-4

In the framework of the project NKS funded by the Federal Minister of Research and Technology, MPA Stuttgart conducted up to now 7 pressurized thermal shock experiments. The purpose of the experimental and numerical investigations in the research project was to study the crack propagation behavior of circumferential flaws on the inner surface of the test specimens. Experiments NKS-3 and NKS-4 were selected as reference experiments in the project FALSIRE. In this paper the authors give a review of the experiments and the experimental results and an overview of the analysis results presented at the FALSIRE workshop in 1990. It is shown that the post calculations of the NKS-3 specimen during the CSNI project FALSIRE provided fracture mechanics results in a relatively small scatterband. The NKS-4 results showed a greater scatterband, but the main reasons could be explained. 5 refs., 28 figs., 4 tabs