Performance of low-upper-shelf material under pressurized-thermal-shock loading

The second pressurized-thermal-shock experiment (PTSE-2) of the Heavy-Section Steel Technology Program was conceived to investigate fracture behavior of steel with low ductile-tearing resistance. The experiment was performed in the pressurized-thermal-shock test facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. PTSE-2 was designed primarily to reveal the interaction of ductile and brittle modes of fracture and secondarily to investigates the effects of warm prestressing, A test vessel was prepared by inserting a cracklike flaw of well-defined geometry on the outside surface of the vessel. The flaw was 1 m long by ≈ 15 mm deep. The instrumented vessel was placed in the test facility in which it was initially heated to a uniform temperature and was then concurrently cooled on the outside and pressurized on the inside. These actions produced an evolution of temperature, toughness, and stress gradients relative to the prepared flaw that was appropriate to the planned objectives. The experiment was conducted in twoseparate transients, each one starting with the vessel nearly isothermal. The first transient induced a warm-prestressed state, during which K I , first exceeded K Ic . This was followed by repressurization until a cleavage fracture propagated and arrested. The final transient was designed to produce and investigate a cleavage crack propagation followed by unstable tearing. During this transient, the fracture events occurred as had been planned.