An Experimental Assessment of the Effects of Residual Stresses on Fracture Behavior of the Plate

The quantitative assessment of the effect of the residual stress on fracture behavior was executed by some experiment and numerical analysis. First of all, artificial residual stresses were imposed on CT(Compact Tension) specimens by local heating using gas torch, and an appropriate distribution of residual stresses was obtained by thermal elastic-plastic FE analysis. To certify the result of the FE analysis, an experimental measurement was performed in accordance with ASTM standard. Fracture toughness test was executed on the several types of specimens. The first type was the specimen without residual stresses, and the others had different peak value of compressive residual stress at crack front via controlling the heat flux. All the test results were presented on th J resistance(JR) curves and discussed to verify the effect of compressive residual stresses on fracture behavior.