Modeling of fracture and crack growth in welds operating at elevated temperatures

Abstract

This paper critically examines the fundamental limitations of the available nonlinear fracture mechanics based models and procedures for predicting fracture and crack growth behavior in structural welds. It is shown that the weld fracture and crack growth data show significantly more scatter than the same data in homogeneous materials. The data scatter is linked to heterogeneity in the microstructure of the weld and the resulting differences in the deformation properties of the weld region causing cracks to meander from their expected path. Some preliminary ideas for dealing with this scatter are proposed and recommendations for future work in this area are also made.