It is now a well established fact that fatigue cracks initiate from persistent slip bands (PSBs). Previous work on copper fatigued in reverse bending has revealed that the PSBs form much earlier near indentations or surface pits than in regions well away from them. The cause of this effect has been attributed partly to a dislocation microstructure introduced by the indentations as well as possible contribution from the residual stresses resulting from them and geometric stress raising effects. To study this phenomenon in a greater depth, an attempt has been made to make a comprehensive study of the plastic deformation around indentations and to study their effect on the low ampltude fatigue cycling of mono and polycrystalline copper. This effect has been studied using both surface as well as Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) observations. The project was divided into four main categories; a study of the deformation around indentations; a study of the fatigue cycling mechanism; a study of the low strain amplitude fatigue cycling of the indented specimens and a study of the effect of indentation on the fatigued specimens. The surface topographical studies were made on specially designed polycrystalline and single crystal specimens of copper. The transmission electron microscope study has been done mainly on thin strips sliced and prepared from two bulk single crystals with axial orientation close to [124] and [012]. The dislocation structures due to indentations were studied in regions at different positions in relation to the indentations and included a study of the microstructures close to the surface as well as ~ 50mum from it. Specimens were fatigued in air, at room temperature, at total strain amplitudes in the range = 2x10-4 to 9.8x10-4 for bulk specimens and a 0.8x10-3 to 1.9x10-3 for thin foil specimens. The number of fatigue cycles given to the specimens varied (from specimen to specimen) from a few cycles to several hundred thousand cycles. The Dyer model (1965) has been satisfactorily extended from ball to pyramid indentations to explain the hill formation and the general surface topography around indentations. Dislocation, microstructures around indentations in the 'indented' and 'indented and fatigued' specimens of the same orientation have been analysed and compared. Such an analysis has revealed that in the regions of indentations in which PSBs are initiated more readily, the dislocation microstructure due to indentation contained predominantly the Burgers vectors +/-a/2 [110] or +/-a/2 [011] and +/-a/2 [110] or +/-a/2 [011]. In contrast to these, the most frequently found Burgers vectors in the same regions of the indentation followed by fatigue were +/-a/2 [101] and +/-a/2 [011], which reveals that the Burgers vectors of the dislocations introduced by the indentation in these regions are quite favourable for the later stage of fatigue cycling, with an enhanced density of dislocations. A little work was also done to study the effect of the indentations made in the fatigued specimens. It has showed an enhancement of the inhomogeneous and anisotropic deformation around the indentations caused by fatigue cycling as well as a significantly different type of slip bands.

The R6 procedure is used for the prevention and prediction of crack behaviour and other defects in the reactor pressure vessel(RPV). The RPV material is an upper-bainitic, low alloy steel structure, which deforms inhomogeneously when yielding. The current codes that are used to design and calculate the fracture, within an RPV, assume that the material yields continuously as the size of the L¨uders strain is less than 2%. However, the work of Wenman et al[1] has shown that the inclusion of a L¨uders band during calculations can reduce the residual stress in a material, when compared to standard work-hardening models and, consequently, reduces the amount of conservatism. The objective of the research was to determine whether Wenman’s finding could be generalised and therefore initiate a re-evaluation of R6 procedure, when looking into materials that yield discontinuously. This required further investigation into L¨uders bands, such as using failure assessment diagrams (FADs). The findings from FADs showed that at the temperature range for an RPV steel at -155±C for different micro-structures (assuming that the material deforms homogeneously), this reduced the amount of conservatism. However, at fracture toughness values more representative of room temperature behaviour, the converse was true. That is, assuming a discontinuous yield point reduced the amount of conservatism. It was also shown that the tempered martensite structure could be used as an alternative to the current upper bainitic, low alloy steel that is used in RPVs. Further insight is gained into the nature of a L¨uders band, by developing a theoretical model that showed explicit relations between L¨uders strain and the mean free-path(ferrite path), dislocation density and the grain-size. It was also shown that an explicit relation between the L¨uders strain and carbon content was possible from known data, which a new parameter Á was derived, and is the derivative of the work-hardening exponent with respect to the lower yield stress. / © Crown Copyright

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Significant factors on steel corrosion in chloride contaminated reinforced concrete and time-to-corrosion cracking were investigated in this study. Sixty specimens were designed with seven admixed chloride contents, three concrete cover depths, two reinforcing steel bar diameters, two exposure conditions, and a typical concrete with water to cement ratio of 0.45. Corrosion current density (corrosion rate), corrosion potential, ohmic resistance of concrete and temperature were measured monthly on these specimens using both the 3LP and Gecor devices. Metal loss measurements were performed in accordance with ASTM G1-90, method C3.5, after specimens cracked. The actual corrosion weight loss of the steel reinforcing bars was then compared to the result obtained from the corrosion rate measurement devices. An interaction model for characterizing the dynamic corrosion process was developed based on the five-year corrosion database. The model demonstrates that the corrosion rate is a function of chloride content, temperature at reinforcement depth, ohmic resistance of concrete, and corrosion time after initiation. A time-to-corrosion cracking model was suggested based on a corrosion-cracking conceptual model and critical mass of corrosion products. The model predicted times to corrosion cracking are in good agreement with the observed times to corrosion cracking of the cover concrete. / Ph. D.

Abstract This thesis studies controlling factors that govern transverse hydrogen cracking in high-strength multipass weld metal (WM). The experiments were concerned with heavy-restraint Y- and U-Groove multipass cracking tests of shielded-metal arc (SMAW) and submerged-arc (SAW) weld metals. Results of tensile tests, hardness surveys, weld residual stress measurements and microstructural investigations are discussed. The analytical phase comprised numerical calculations for analysing the interactions between crack-controlling factors. The objectives were: (i) the assessment of WM hydrogen cracking risk by defining the Crack-No Crack boundary conditions in terms of 'safe line' description giving the desired lower-bound estimates, and (ii) to derive predictive equations capable of giving reliable estimates of the required preheat/interpass temperature T0/Ti for the avoidance of cracking. Hydrogen cracking occurred predominantly in high strength weld metals of Rp0.2 ≈ 580-900 MPa. At intermediate strengths of Rp0.2 ≈ 500-550 MPa, cracking took place in the cases where the holding time from welding to NDT inspection was prolonged to 7 days. Low strength WMs of Rp0.2 ≤ 480 MPa did not exhibit cracking under any conditions examined. Cracking occurrence was, above all, governed by WM tensile strength, weld diffusible hydrogen and weld residual stresses amounting to the yield strength. The appearance of cracking vanished when transferring from 40 to 6 mm thick welds. The implications of the holding time were more significant than anticipated previously. A period of 16 hrs in accordance with SFS-EN 1011 appeared much too short for thick multipass welds. Interpass time and heat input showed no measurable effect on cracking sensitivity, hence being of secondary importance. Equations were derived to assess the weld critical hydrogen content Hcr corresponding to the Crack-No Crack conditions as a function of either weld metal Pcm, yield strength Rp0.2 or weld metal maximum hardness HV5(max). For the calculation of safe T0/Ti estimates, a formula incorporating: (i) WM strength as a linear function of either weld carbon equivalent CET or weld HV5(max), (ii) weld build-up thickness aw in the form of tanh expression and (iii) weld diffusible hydrogen HD in terms of a combined [ln / power law] expression was found descriptive.

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An elliptical ring test method is presented to replace the circular ring test method for assessing cracking potential of concrete and other cement-based materials under restrained condition. The latter is recommended by both ASTM (American Society of Testing Materials (C1581/C 1581M-09a) and AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (PP34–39, 2004)) as a standard test method for such purpose. However, there is no research published so far on comparing circular and elliptical ring test for assessing the relative likelihood of cracking of concrete and other cement-based materials as proposed in this study. Besides, ASTM proposes to use thin concrete rings with the wall thickness of 1.5 inches while AASHTO to use thick concrete rings with the wall thickness of 3 inches. The implication of these two ring wall thicknesses has not been well studied. The elliptical ring geometry employed here was used to facilitate unique ways of analysing cracking sensitivity of concrete. In line with this, the test program and numerical model developed was focused on investigating the mechanism of the elliptical ring test, irrespective of the concrete materials used which is also novel in this research as efforts towards this assessment are still yet to be published. The new experimental method investigated the use of elliptical rings for assessing the potential of concrete cracking under restrained condition to enable a faster and more reliable assessment of cracking tendency of concrete and other cement-based materials. A series of thin and thick elliptical concrete rings were tested alongside circular ones until cracking. Cracking age, position and propagation in various rings were carefully examined. It was found that thin elliptical rings with appropriate geometry can initiate crack quicker than circular ones which is desirable for accelerating the ring test. There were multiple visible cracks that occurred in elliptical rings and some cracks initiated but did not propagate through the ring wall, an interesting finding reported as the first time by this study. The features of multiple cracks in restrained elliptical rings were examined and their impact on interpreting elliptical ring test results was discussed. In addition, in restrained thin concrete rings, cracks initiated at their inner circumference and propagated towards their outer one while cracks initiated at the outer circumference and propagated towards their inner one for thick rings. To explore the mechanism of this new test method, a numerical model was developed to simulate stress development and crack initiation in concrete ring specimens under restrained shrinkage in which the effect of concrete shrinkage was simulated by an artificial temperature field externally applied on concrete causing the same strain as shrinkage does. A uniform artificial temperature field across the concrete ring wall generated good results and works well for simulating shrinkage cracking of thin concrete rings while an artificial temperature field with linear gradient across the concrete ring wall should be employed in order to predict cracking behaviour of thick concrete rings under restrained shrinkage reasonably well. Stress developed in concrete rings in the restrained shrinkage test was thus obtained through a combined thermal and structural analysis. Based on the maximum tensile stress cracking criterion, cracking age and position of a series of circular and elliptical, thin and thick rings were obtained from numerical analyses. It was found that numerical results match the experimental results in terms of initial cracking ages and position for a number of circular and elliptical concrete rings subject to restrained shrinkage. The effects of ring geometry on cracking in concrete were equally investigated by comparing the behaviour of the elliptical and the circular rings under restrained shrinkage. Both experimental and numerical results indicated that the ratio between the major and the minor semi-axes of an elliptical ring emerges as the main factor which affects the maximum circumferential tensile stress in concrete when subjected to restrained shrinkage. Thin elliptical rings with appropriate geometry can enable crack initiating earlier than circular rings, which is able to accelerate the ring test for assessing the potential of cracking of concrete mixtures. On the other hand, thick elliptical concrete rings do not to possess a favourable geometry effect over circular ones in accelerating ring test due to a relatively weaker restraining effect provided by the central steel ring. The results on crack position and stress development in concrete rings based on numerical analysis were examined to further explore the mechanism of the proposed elliptical ring test for assessing cracking potential of concrete. It was also found that the drying direction of the concrete ring has a substantial influence on the cracking age when thin concrete rings are considered.

This thesis presents the experimental and analytical results to investigate the effect of corrosion on the mechanical properties of reinforcing bars and concrete beams, with particular reference to their ductility. In the experimental works, specimens were electrochemically corroded, before they were loaded to failure. In the finite element analysis, the corrosion of reinforcement was modelled as either internal pressure or radial expansion around corroded bars. The study indicates that the amount of corrosion to cause cracking at the bar and concrete surfaces almost linearly increased with the bar diameter and ratio of cover to diameter, respectively. No matter whether concrete cover c increased or bar distance S decreased, once the ratio of S / c became less than 2.5, corrosion cracks first propagated internally between the bars and caused delamination. Although corrosion did not alter the shape of force-extension curves substantially, it decreased bar strength and, especially, ductility greatly. Furthermore, although the reductions of strengths were identical, the ductility of bars corroded in concrete decreased more rapidly than that of bare corroded bars. Corrosion decreased beam strength and altered its ductility and failure mode. When the cracking of compressive concrete or the reduction of tensile bar area dominated beam response, corrosion increased beam ductility and caused a beam to fail in a less brittle and even ductile manner. When the deterioration of bond strength or the reduction of steel ductility controlled beam behaviour, however, corrosion decreased beam ductility and led the beam to fail in a less ductile and even brittle manner. There is a concern regarding the ductility of reinforcing bars and under-reinforced beams if the amount of corrosion exceeds 100/0, since bar ultimate strain decreased below the minimum requirements prescribed in the Model Code 90 for situations requiring high ductility.

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