Influence of specimen size/type on the fracture toughness of five irradiated RPV materials

The Heavy-Section Steel Irradiation (HSSI) Program had previously irradiated five reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels/welds at fast neutron fluxes of about 4 to 8 1011 n/cm2/s (>1 MeV) to fluences from 0.5 to 3.4 1019 n/cm2 and at 288 C. The unirradiated fracture toughness tests were performed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory with 12.7-mm and 25.4-mm thick (0.5T and 1T) compact specimens, while the HSSI Program provided tensile and 5 10-mm three-point bend specimens to SCK CEN for irradiation in the in-pile section of the Belgian Reactor BR2 at fluxes >1013 n/cm2/s and subsequent testing by SCK CEN. The BR2 irradiations were conducted at about 2 and 4 1013 n/cm2/s with irradiation temperature between 295 C and 300 C (water temperature), and to fluences between 6 and10 1019 n/cm2. The irradiation-induced shifts of the Master Curve reference temperatures, T0, for most of the materials deviated from the embrittlement correlations much more than expected, motivating the testing of 5 10-mm three-point bend specimens of all five materials in the unirradiated condition to eliminate specimen size and geometry as a variable. Tests of the unirradiated small bend specimens resulted in Master Curve reference temperatures, T0, 25 C to 53 C lower thanmore » those from the larger compact specimens, meaning that the irradiation-induced reference temperature shifts, T0, were larger than the initial measurements, resulting in much improved agreement between the measured and predicted fracture toughness shifts.« less