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Tensile tests were conducted for notched round-bar specimens to acquire the limit conditions of local failure, which is ductile failure after large local deformation for three types of steel, SGV480, SPV490 and SGV410, for nuclear containment structures. The notch deformation was monitored using a profile projector. The notch’s cross-section radius and the curvature radius of the notched profile were continuously measured by image analysis in the tensile test. From those measurements, the stress and strain at the notch’s cross-section center were determined by Bridgman’s approximate solution and the elastoplastic FEM analysis. The true stress-true strain curve for the elastoplastic FEM was identified a priori by an optimization program that searches for the good curve in the exponential form applicable to large strain regions. No cracks were observed at the notch bottom surface in all specimens until the final rupture. The failure at the notch’s cross-section center was detected from the inflection point of the load-displacement curve. The limit strain diagrams were compared with those of ASME Sec. VIII-2 and its conservatism were discussed. Further, small-size notched round-bar specimens were sampled from the weld joints of SGV480 and SPV490 to determine the limit strain diagrams and true stress-true strain curves of the base metal, HAZ, and weld metal. The limit strain diagrams at each material of the weld joints were as high as or higher than the base metal, except for the weld metal of SPV490. The authors discussed the optical micrographs for fracture surfaces of specimens, the fracture morphology of weld joints, and the modified expression of a limit failure stress index regarded as the stress indication of the limit strain diagram in the high-stress triaxiality region.

A series of tensile tests were conducted for notched plate specimens whose shapes are similar to the pressure shell to clarify the local failure characteristics for the steel nuclear containment. The specimens included the full or partial-width notched plate specimens of 10 mm thickness, and full-width notched thick plate specimens of 34 mm thickness the same as the actual pressure shell. In the full-width notched plate specimens with a small curvature notch, the cracking occurred on the notch bottom, and the crack propagated and finally ruptured. The plate specimens with a large curvature notch failed in shear suddenly without notch bottom cracking. Those failure modes were very unlike notched round-bar specimens, in which failure always starts at the notch section center. In the case of partial-width notch plate specimens, the notch bottom cracking also occurred for a small curvature notch, and the notch section failure happened before the specimen’s rupture for a large curvature notch. The limit strain diagrams were 40% to 50% lower than those of the notched round-bar specimens. The limit failure stress indexes, which correspond to the stress indications for the limit strain diagrams, could be applied to the shear failure of notched plate specimens. The indexes of the notched plate specimens were approximately 10% lower than those of the round-bar specimens. The crack initiation points for small curvature notch specimens were concentrated in the range of stress triaxiality 0.6 and equivalent plastic strain 0.5 to 0.8. In the full-width notched thick plate specimens, notch bottom cracking occurred for all specimens, and the cracking conditions were almost the same as the full and partial notched plate specimens. However, the maximum nominal stress exceeded 2/3 of the design tensile strength, and it was concluded that local failure occurs at more than twice the design pressure.

A zirconium alloy cylindrical tube exhibited fracture under high-velocity axial impact load when high yield strength pellets were inserted as reported by Morishige et al., 2016. The fracture occurred after a crack was initiated at the tensile side of the bending tube. In this paper, FE analyses were conducted to clarify the fracture mechanism as well as the deformation behavior. At first, axial tensile tests using tubes with four slit-holes located at the center were performed in order to evaluate the fracture behavior of the tube. Then, digital image correlation (DIC) method was utilized to measure the local strain near the slit-holes. The results showed that the fracture displacement became smaller with smaller slit-holes’ radius. Also, the strain was concentrated at the slit-holes’ tips where cracks were generated before fracture. Subsequently, FE analyses of the tensile tests were conducted by LS-DYNA using the implicit method to obtain the fracture criterion. The load-displacement curve agreed well with the experiment. Then, the relationship between stress triaxiality and equivalent plastic strain near the slit-holes’ area were evaluated to define the fracture criterion. Finally, FE analyses of the axial impact tests using the dynamic explicit method were conducted to compare with the fracture criterion defined by the axial tensile tests. The results indicated that a localized stress and strain might occur at the tube boundary adjacent to pellets. This was caused by the interaction between tube and pellets’ edge which generated a tensile stress condition at the tube boundary when high yield strength pellet was applied. Under this condition, both stress triaxiality and effective plastic strain could increase and eventually lead to the fracture criterion.