A simple criterion to exclude the risk of brittle fracture in the brittle-to-ductile transition temperature range

This paper presents the use of a simple threshold stress criterion to exclude the risk of brittle fracture in the brittle-to-ductile transition temperature range of carbon-manganese ferritic steel. In order to compare its predictions for laboratory specimens as well as for structures, fracture tests on CT specimens and three pipe structures representative of the in-service auxiliary piping system of French PWR, were analysed. In association with Finite Element analyses, this criterion allowed the authors to predict a lower bound of the non-fracture threshold.