A new local approach model for cleavage fracture in ferritic steels and its validation

¹ Paul Scherrer Institute, Nuclear Energy and Safety Department, Laboratory for Nuclear Materials, OHSA/06, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
² Applied Materials, Inc., 974 East Arques Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94085, USA

^* Corresponding author: guian.qian@psi.ch, Leiws2008@gmail.com

Abstract

The paper discusses and applies a statistical approach to correlate the fracture behavior of a notched and fracture mechanics specimen. The method can be used for fatigue analysis. The random nature of cleavage fracture process determines that both the microscopic fracture stress and the macroscopic properties including fracture load, fracture toughness and the ductile to brittle transition temperature are all stochastic parameters. This understanding leads to the proposal of statistical assessment of cleavage induced notch toughness of ferritic steels according to a new local approach to cleavage fracture. The temperature independence of the two Weibull parameters in the new model induces a master curve to correlate the fracture load at different temperatures. A normalized stress combining the two Weibull parameters and the yield stress is proposed as the deterministic index to measure notch toughness. This proposed index is applied to compare the notch toughness of a ferritic steel with two different microstructures.