Prediction of Fracture Toughness KIC Transition Curves of Pressure Vessel Steels From Charpy V-Notch Impact Test Results

Abstract

A single and generalized prediction method of fracture toughness KIC transition curves of pressure vessel steels has been greatly desired by engineers in the petro-chemical and nuclear power industries, especially from the viewpoint of life extension of reactor pressure vessels. In this paper, the toughness degradation of Cr-Mo steels during long-term service was examined and the two prediction methods of fracture toughness KIC transition curves were studied using the data of 54 heats. 1) The toughness degradation of 2 1/4Cr-1Mo steels levels off within around 50,000 h service. 2) The FATT versus J-factor (=(Si+Mn)(P+Sn)×104) and/or X (=(10P+5Sb+4Sn+As)x10−2) relationships to estimate the maximum embrittlement of Cr-Mo steels were obtained. 3) A master curve method developed by authors et al.; that is, the method using a KIC/KIC−US versus excess temperature master curve of each material was presented for 2 1/4Cr-1Mo, 1 1/4Cr-1/2Mo, 1Cr and 1/2Mo chemical pressure vessel steels and ASTM A508 C1.1, A508 C1.2, A508 C1.3 and A533 Gr.B C1.1 nuclear pressure vessel steels, where KIC−US is the upper-shelf fracture toughness and excess temperature is test temperature minus FATT. 4) A generalized prediction method to predict the KIC transition curves of any low-alloy steels was developed. This method consists of KIC/KIC−US versus T–T0 master curve and temperature shift ΔT between fracture toughness and CVN impact transition curves versus yield strength relationship, where To is the temperature showing 50 percent KIC−US of the material. 5) The KIC transition curves predicted using both methods showed a good agreement with the lower bound of measured KJC values obtained from JC tests.