Effect of Specimen Size on the Impact Properties of Neutron Irradiated A533B Steel

Abstract

A new methodology is proposed to correlate the upper shelf energy (USE) of full-size and subsize Charpy specimens of a nuclear reactor pressure vessel plate material. The methodology appears to be more satisfactory than those methodlogies proposed earlier. The USE was normalized by a normalization factor involving the dimensions of the Charpy specimen, the elastic stress concentration factor, and the plastic constraint at the notch root. The normalized values of the USE were found to be invariant with speciment size. In addition, it was also found that the ratio of the USE of unirradiated to that of irradiated materials was approximately the same for full-, half-, and third-size specimens. The ductile-to-brittle transition temperture (DBTT) increased due to irradiation at 150°C to a nominal fluence of 1.0 × 1019 n/cm2 (E >MeV) by 78, 83 and 70°C for full-, half-, and third-size specimens, respectively. These shifts in DBTT appeared to be independent of specimen size and notch geometry.

Department(s)

Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0022-3115

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 1995 Elsevier, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 1995

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