No description available.

No description available.

Welding is an essential process in many industries for both the production and repair of engineering plant, notably pressure vessels and piping. However, welding processes cause large magnitudes of residual stress to be induced within the structure. Residual stress can be defined as a stress that exists in a material when it is under no primary loading. Whilst residual stresses can be reduced by post weld heat treatment, such treatments are not always possible, and so high residual stresses can remain in serviceThe current methodology for evaluating fracture toughness from specimens, particularly if these contain weld residual stresses is presented in BS7448-1997. This method relies on the assumption that the effect of residual stress on fracture toughness measurements can be negated by the application of a local compression, to the ligament ahead of the pre-crack in the test specimen. Recent research has investigated the validity of this assumption. The results suggest that, far from being removed, the residual stresses are modified or even enhanced via local compression. This can reduce the value of measured fracture toughness below its true value. In order to ensure the validity of fracture toughness measurements in materials that contain residual stress, a more robust method for its quantification is developed.The aim of this project was to extend current understanding regarding the magnitude and distribution of residual stresses retained in standard fracture mechanics specimens removed from welds and the consequent effects of these stresses on measured fracture toughness, both in terms of the crack driving force and crack-tip constraint. Furthermore, the project aimed to derive improved methods for the quantification of valid values of fracture toughness from laboratory specimens containing residual stresses. This was achieved via a combination of analytical and experimental work.The effect of specimen extraction on the level of retained residual stress in specimens extracted from non stress-relieved welds was investigated using parametric finite element analyses. Simplified methods to quantify the levels of residual stresses in fracture mechanics specimens removed from welds and their significance, in terms of contribution to crack driving force, are proposed.The influence of residual stresses on the measured fracture toughness properties of ferritic pressure vessel steel, tested in the cleavage fracture regime, has also been studied. A refined method of out-of-plane compression was devised and used to generate significant residual stresses in three-point bend specimens. This method was then used experimentally, alongside supporting elastic-plastic analyses, to quantify the effects of the residual stresses on fracture toughness in terms of both crack driving force and crack-tip constraint in geometrically high and low constraint specimens. A method whereby fracture toughness data, obtained from specimens containing residual stresses, can be corrected to provide valid fracture toughness properties using constraint based fracture mechanics alongside a simple fracture model has been proposed. The main conclusions from the work are as follows. Significant weld residual stresses have been shown to be retained in certain laboratory specimens post extraction from non stress-relieved welds. The magnitude and distribution of retained residual stress has been shown to be dependant on: • Material yield and flow properties • Specimen size; where larger specimens are more likely to retain significant levels of residual stress than smaller specimens • Specimen type; either compact tension (CT) or single edge notched bend (SENB), where there is a tendency for specimens to retain higher relative levels of residual stress in the directions of their largest dimensions; i.e. bend specimens retain more residual stress along their length than CT specimens and CT specimens retain more residual stress across their width than bend specimens • Extraction location, e.g. full thickness, near surface, mid-thickness etc. The stress partitioning method has been shown to provide a useful estimating approach for assessing the levels of residual stress retained in fracture mechanics specimens extracted from non stress-relieved welds in certain orientations.Retained residual stresses have been shown to affect both crack driving force and crack-tip constraint in both low and high geometrically constrained 50mm bend specimens manufactured from A533B ferritic steel. The residual stress has been shown to dominate the level of crack-tip constraint condition over and above the geometric and loading factors during the early stages of loading. The effects of residual stress on crack driving force and crack-tip constraint have been shown to result in fracture loads and, therefore, measured fracture toughness values that vary widely from those to be expected in the material under small-scale yielding conditions; i.e. if a standard specimen were to be tested containing no residual stress. Two-parameter (J-Q) fracture mechanics has been shown to provide a valid approach for quantifying fracture toughness properties from high and low constraint specimens, with and without residual stresses, with all data being shown to be consistent with a J-Q failure locus for a given level of cleavage probability.

No description available.

No description available.

The aim of the thesis was to study the susceptibility for brittle failures and the fracture process of duplex stainless steels at sub-zero temperatures (°C). In the first part of the thesis plates of hot-rolled duplex stainless steel with various thicknesses were used to study the influence of delamination (also known as splits) on the fracture toughness. The methods used were impact and fracture toughness testing. Light optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy were used to investigate the microstructure and fracture surfaces. It was concluded that the delaminations caused a loss of constraint along the crack front which resulted in a stable fracture process despite the presence of cleavage cracks. These delaminations occurred when cleavage cracks are constrained by the elongated austenite lamellae. The pop-in phenomenon which is frequently observed in duplex stainless steels during fracture toughness testing was shown to occur due to these delaminations. The susceptibility for pop-in behaviour during testing increased with decreasing plate thickness. The toughness anisotropy was also explained by the delamination phenomenon.In the second part of the thesis duplex stainless steel weld metals from lean duplex and super duplex were investigated. For the lean duplex weldments with different nickel contents, tensile, impact and fracture toughness testing were conducted from room temperature to sub-zero temperatures. The result showed that increased nickel content decreased the susceptibility for critical cleavage initiation at sub-zero temperatures. The super duplex stainless steel weldment was post weld heat treated. The fracture sequence at low temperature was critical cleavage fracture initiation after minor crack-tip blunting and ductile fracture. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy investigation of the weld metals showed that substitutional element partitioning is small in the weld metal. However, for the post weld heat treated weldments element partitioning occurred which resulted in decreased nickel content in the ferrite. / <p>QC 20131108</p>

Cleavage fracture in ferritic steels can be defined as a sequence of few critical steps. At first nucleation of a microcrack takes place, often in a hard inclusion. This microcrack then propagates into the surrounding matrix material. The last obstacle before failure is the encounter of grain boundaries. If a microcrack is not arrested during any of those steps, cleavage takes place. Temperature plays an important role since it changes the failure mode from ductile to brittle in a narrow temperature interval. In papers A and B micromechanical models of the last critical phase are developed (cleavage over a grain boundary) in order to examine the mechanics of this phase. An extensive parameter study is performed in Paper A, where cleavage planes of two grains are allowed to tilt relative each other. It is there shown that triaxiality has a significant effect on the largest grain size that can arrest a rapidly propagating microcrack. This effect is explained by the development of the plastic zone prior to crack growth. The effect of temperature, addressed through a change in the visco-plastic response of the ferrite, shows that the critical grain size increases with the temperature. This implies that with an increasing temperature more cracks can be arrested, that is to say that less can become critical and thus that the resistance to fracture increases. Paper B shows simulations of microcrack propagation when the cleavage planes of two neighboring grains are tilted and twisted relatively each other. It is shown that when a microcrack enters a new grain, it first does it along primary cleavage planes. During further growth the crack front is protruded along the primary planes and lags behind along the secondary ones. The effect of tilt and twist on the critical grain size is decoupled with twist misorientation offering a greater resistance to propagation. Simulations of cracking of a particle and microcrack growth across an inclusion-matrix interface are made in Paper C. It is shown that the particle stress can be expressed by an Eshelby type expression modified for plasticity. The analysis of dynamic growth, results in a modified Griffith expression. Both findings are implemented into a micromechanics-based probabilistic model for cleavage that is of a weakest link type and incorporates all critical phases of cleavage: crack nucleation, propagation over particle-matrix interface and into consecutive grains. The proposed model depends on six parameters, which are obtained for three temperatures in Paper D using experimental data from SE(B) tests. At the lowest temperature, -30° , the model gives an excellent prediction of the cumulative failure probability by cleavage fracture and captures the threshold toughness and the experimental scatter. At 25º  and 55º  the model slightly overestimates the fracture probability. In Paper E a serie of fracture experiments is performed on half-elliptical surface cracks at 25º in order to further verify the model. Experiments show a significant scatter in the fracture toughness. The model significantly overestimates the fracture probability for this crack geometry. / QC 20100910

Irradiation of a reactor pressure vessel (RPV) causes a shift of the ductile to brittle transition region towards higher temperature regions. In the event of a pressurized thermal shock (PTS), where the temperature drops drastically, the ductile to brittle transition region might be entered for irradiated ferritic steel. Hence, there is a risk of brittle cleavage fracture. Cleavage fracture is a transgranular unstable fracture initiated by cracked second phase particles and rapidly propagated over grain boundaries. The warm pre-stressing (WPS) effect can be helpful as it increases the apparent fracture toughness of ferritic steel pre-loaded in the ductile temperature region, which is the case for a PTS. This effect has been proven effective for virgin material, but the impact of residual stress fields on the WPS effect have not been investigated thoroughly. Utilizing a finite element model of notched three-point bending specimens and a non-local probabilistic model for fracture prediction the effect of residual stresses on the WPS effect was investigated in this thesis. Regarding the crack tip state, expressed as J, the probability of fracture was alike for both material with and without residual stresses, however a significant loss of load bearing capacity was found comparing them two. The magnitude of this loss depends on pre-load level as well as specimen size. This loss however, was also found when not considering the WPS effect. / Bestrålning av ferritiska reaktortankar orakar en förskjutning av den duktil-spröda omslagstemperaturen till högre temperaturer. Vid en trycksatt termisk shock (TTS) sjunker temperaturen drastiskt i reaktorn och omslagstemperaturen kan nås. Därför uppstår en risk för klyvbrott. Klyvbrott är en transgranulär ostabil spricktillväxt initierad av sprickor i sekundärfaspartiklar som propagerar över korngränserna om spänningstillståndet är gynnsamt. Varm förbelastning, eller warm pre-stressing (WPS) kan vara fördelaktig eftersom den höjer den effektiva brottsegheten hos ferritiskt stål som förbelstats i den duktila temperaturregionen, som är fallet för TTS. Den här effekten har visats effektiv för material utan restspänningar, men för fallet med restspäninningar saknas utförliga undersökningar av WPS-effekten. Med hjälp av en finita element model av tre-punkt böjprovstavar och en icke-lokal sannolikhetsmodell för prediktion av brott så undersöktes vilken effekt restspänningar har på WPS-effekten. Brottsannolikheten visade sig vara lika för både material med och utan restspännigar om man syftar på sprickspetstillståndet, uttryckt som J. Däremot syns en tydlig förlust i lastbärande förmåga mellan de två fallen. Storleksordningen på förlustern beror både på förbelastningsnivå och provstavsstorlek. Den förlusten kunde dock finnas även för fall utan någon WPS effekt.

Ageing of low alloy steel in nuclear applications commonly takes the form as a hardening and an embrittlement of the material. This is due to the evolution of the microstructure during irradiation and at purely thermal conditions, as a combination or separate. Irradiation introduces evenly distributed solute clusters, while thermal ageing has been shown to yield a more inhomogeneous distribution. These clusters affect the dislocation motion within the material and results in a hardening and in more severe cases of ageing, also a decreased work hardening slope due to plastic strain localization into bands/channels. Embrittlement corresponds to decreased fracture toughness due to microstructural changes resulting from ageing. The thesis presents a possible framework for modeling of ageing effects in low alloy steels.In Paper I, a strain gradient plasticity framework is applied in order to capture length scale effects. The constitutive length scale is assumed to be related to the dislocation mean free path and the changes this undergoes during plastic deformation. Several evolution laws for the length scale were developed and implemented in a FEM-code considering 2D plane strain. This was used to solve a test problem of pure bending in order to investigate the effects of the length scale evolution. As all length scale evolution laws considered in this study results in a decreasing length scale; this leads to a loss of non-locality which causes an overall softening at cases where the strain gradient is dominating the solution. The results are in tentative agreement with phenomena of strain localization that is occurring in highly irradiated materials.In Paper II, the scalar stress measure for cleavage fracture is developed and generalized, here called the effective normal stress measure. This is used in a non-local weakest link model which is applied to two datasets from the literature in order to study the effects of the effective normal stress measure, as well as new experiments considering four-point bending of specimens containing a semi-elliptical surface crack. The model is shown to reproduce the failure probability of all considered datasets, i.e. well capable of transferring toughness information between different geometries. / Åldring av låglegerade stål i kärntekniska användningsområden framträder typiskt som ett hårdnande och en försprödning av materialet. Detta på grund av utvecklingen av mikrostrukturen under bestrålning och under rent termiska förhållanden. Bestrålning introducerar jämt fördelade kluster av legeringsämnen. Termisk åldring har däremot visats ge upphov till en mer ojämn fördelning. Klustren hämmar dislokationsrörelsen i materialet och ger därigenom upphov till en ökning av materialets sträckgräns, vid en mer påtaglig åldring det även leda till ett sänkt arbetshårdnande på grund av lokalisering av plastisk töjning i s.k. kanaler/band. Försprödning är en sänkning av materialets brottseghet som en följd av de mikrostrukturella förändringar som sker vid åldring. Arbetet som presenteras i den här avhandlingen har gjorts i syfte till att ta fram ett möjligt ramverk för modellering av låglegerade stål.I Artikel I, används en töjningsgradientbaserad plasticitetsteori för att kunna fånga längdskalebeteenden. Längdskalan i teorin antas vara relaterad till dislokationernas medelfria väg och den förändring den genomgår vid plastisk deformation. Flera utvecklingslagar för längdskalan har analyserats och implementerats i en finita element kod för 2D plan deformation. Denna implementering har använts för att lösa ett testproblem bestående av ren böjning med syfte att undersöka effekterna av utvecklingen hos längdskalan. Alla de utvecklingslagar som presenteras i artikeln ger en minskande längdskala, vilket leder till vad som valt att kallas förlust av icke-lokalitet. Fenomenet leder till ett övergripande mjuknande vid fall där den plastiska töjningsgradienten har stor inverkan på lösningen. Resultaten är i preliminär överenstämmelse med de typer av lokalisering av plastisk töjning som observerats i starkt bestrålade material.I Artikel II utvecklas ett generaliserat spänningsmått i syfte att beskriva klyvbrott, här benämnt effektivt normalspänningsmått. Detta har använts i samband med en icke-lokal svagaste länk modell, som har applicerats på två experimentella studier från den öppna litteraturen i syfte att studera effekterna av det effektiva normalspänningsmåttet. Utöver detta presenteras även nya experiment på ytspruckna provstavar under fyrpunktsböj. I artikeln visas att modellen återskapar sannolikheten för brott för alla undersökta experimentuppställningar, d.v.s. modellen visas vara väl duglig för att överföra brottseghet mellan geometrier. / <p>QC 20190312</p>

Este trabalho aborda uma investigação numérica-experimental sobre o comportamento à fratura por clivagem de um aço de alta resistência e baixa liga ASTM A572 Grau 50 usando corpos de prova SE(B) em configurações padronizadas e não padronizadas, incluindo a configuração PCVN não padronizada. O principal objetivo desse estudo é contribuir para o desenvolvimento de um procedimento de ensaio de tenacidade à fratura aplicável a geometrias SE(B) com distância entre apoios variável (S/W) e carregada sob configuração de flexão por 3 e 4 pontos. O objetivo secundário, mas não menos importante, é investigar os efeitos da geometria e do modo de carregamento sobre as distribuições dos dados de tenacidade à fratura medidas experimentalmente e suas implicações na caracterização da dependência da tenacidade em relação à temperatura baseada na metodologia da curva mestra. Com base nesses propósitos, é fornecido um novo e extenso conjunto de fatores plásticos eta (?p) aplicáveis às geometrias SE(B) não padronizadas para estimar os valores de tenacidade à fratura, incluindo a integral J e o parâmetro CTOD, medidos experimentalmente em termos de registros de carga e deslocamento. A fim de facilitar o contato com os demais protocolos de ensaios, é também fornecido um novo conjunto de fatores rotacionais plástico (rp) para determinar o CTOD baseado no modelo da rótula plástica. Os ensaios de tenacidade à fratura, realizados em diversas geometrias SE(B) com distância entre apoios variável (S/W) extraídas na direção transversal (T-L) de uma chapa de aço ASTM A572 Grau 50, fornecem os dados de tenacidade à fratura por clivagem em termos da integral-J medida no ponto de instabilidade, Jc. Os resultados experimentais mostram um potencial efeito da geometria do corpo de prova e do modo de carregamento sobre os valores de Jc, os quais podem ajudar a mitigar os efeitos da perda de restrição plástica frequentemente observada em corpos de prova de pequenas dimensões. A aplicação exploratória para determinar a temperatura de referência, T0, a partir da metodologia da curva mestra também fornece um suporte adicional para o uso de corpos de prova SE(B) não padronizados como uma alternativa geométrica nos procedimentos rotineiros de avaliação de tenacidade à fratura, incluindo o uso de corpos de prova de pequenas dimensões nas medições de tenacidade quando a disponibilidade limitada de material e a capacidade de carregamento da máquina são as principais preocupações. / This work addresses a numerical-experimental investigation on the cleavage fracture behavior of an ASTM A572 Grade 50 high strength, low alloy structural steel using standard and non-standard SE(B) specimens, including a non-standard PCVN configuration. The main purpose of this study is to contribute to the development of a fracture toughness test procedure applicable to bend geometries with varying specimen span over width ratio (S/W) and loaded under 3-point and 4-point flexural configuration. The secondary purpose, but none the less important, is to investigate the effects of geometry and loading mode on experimentally measured fracture toughness data distributions and implications for the characterization of the temperature dependence of toughness based on the Master Curve methodology. Based on these purposes, a large new set of plastic ?-factors applicable to these non-standard bend geometries which serve to estimate the experimentally measured toughness values in terms of load-displacement records, including the J-integral and the crack tip opening displacement (CTOD), is provided. In order to facilitate contact with other test protocols, a new set of rotational factors, rp, to determine the CTOD based on the plastic hinge model is also described. Fracture toughness testing conducted on various bend geometries with varying specimen span (S/W) extracted in the T-L orientation from an A572 Grade 50 steel plate provides the cleavage fracture resistance data in terms of the J-integral at cleavage instability, Jc. The experimental results show a potential effect of specimen geometry and loading mode on Jc-values which can help mitigating the effects of constraint loss often observed in smaller fracture specimens. An exploratory application to determine the reference temperature, T0, derived from the Master Curve methodology also provides additional support for using non-standard bend specimens as an alternative specimen geometry in routine fracture assessments, including the use of small-scale fracture specimens to measure fracture toughness properties when limited material availability and test machine capacity are of major concern are of major concern.