Fracture toughness curve shift in low upper-shelf welds (series 8)

This task examines the fracture toughness curve shifts and changes in shape for irradiated welds with low CVN upper-shelf energy (USE). The information developed under this task will augment information obtained from other HSSI tasks performed on two high-USE weldments under the Fifth and Sixth Irradiation Series and on a commercial, low USE under the Tenth Irradiation Series. The results will provide an expanded basis for accounting for irradiation-induced embrittlement in RPV materials. Three low-USE welds have been ordered from ABB-Combustion Engineering (ABB-CE), Chattanooga, Tennessee, and two of them have been delivered to ORNL. ABB-CE fabricated the welds for the Fifth and Sixth Series. Preliminary results of mechanical and chemical tests from these two welds are presented below. The Linde 80 flux was used for all three welds. One weld, Weld 1, was made with the 73W weld wire. Weld wire 73W had copper added to the melt to reduce the variations that are associated with copper-coated weld wire. The other two welds were fabricated with a commercially available copper-coated weld wire, L-TEC 44 heat 44112. One of these two welds, Weld 2, has a target copper level of 0.31 %. This copper level could not be attained using themore » copper-coated wire, and the coating will be stripped from the wire, which contains 0.07 % Cu. To attain the target copper level, supplemental copper will be added to the weld puddle using an ABB-CE proprietary process. This will slightly delay the delivery of weld 2, the expected delivery date is now the end of April 1995. Weld 3 was fabricated with the same heat of the L-TEC 44 copper-coated weld wire as weld 2, but with supplemental copper added to the weld puddle, which resulted in a weldment containing an average of 0.424 % Cu. The semiannual report for October 1993 through March 1994 discusses the reasons for the above choices of copper content and welding wire.« less