International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 200 (2022) 104829

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International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpvp

Correlation of Charpy-V notch and different Charpy-U notch impact

specimen energies for structural metals
Kim Wallin
KW-solutions Ltd, Heinäkuja 4A, 02760, Espoo, Finland

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The most common mechanical test to evaluate the fracture resistance of a structural metal is the Charpy-V impact
Charpy impact test test. Nearly all structural integrity assessment procedures use it. The preferred notch geometry is the V-notch, but
V-notch other geometries are or have been sometimes used. The U-notch has normally a root radius of 1 mm, compared to
U-notch
the V-notch which has a root radius of 0.25 mm. Even though the V-notch specimen is today the main geometry,
Correlation
Structural metals
many different specimen versions are still being used to some extent. More importantly, vintage data corre­
sponding to something else than V-notch data may be the only information available for older structures, still in
use. For such cases, it is imperative to have a correlation between different notch geometries. Here simple
correlations for the upper shelf energy and the 35 J/cm2 transition temperatures are developed for four different
U-notch geometries.

region. The early applications of the impact test dealt with the definition
of this region. Besides ferritic steels, stainless duplex steels show a
1. Introduction
similar ductile-to-brittle transition. Even some austenitic stainless-steel
welds that contain significant amounts of δ-ferrite undergo the transi­
The most common mechanical test to evaluate the fracture resistance
tion at sufficiently low temperatures. In these cases, the transition is
of a structural metal is the Charpy impact test. The development of the
somewhat different from the ferritic steels. Ferritic steels will have
Charpy impact test was led by A. E. A. Charpy from around the begin­
continuous cleavage propagation through the ligament, whereas duplex
ning of the 20th century. Depending on viewpoints, the introduction of
steels and austenitic steels with δ-ferrite will experience cleavage in the
the test is attributed to 1898 or 1901 [1,2]. Thus, the test is more than
ferrite part of the structure, but the austenite will still fail by ductile
120 years old.
tearing. This makes the transition behaviour slightly different from
In the test a small, notched test bar is loaded until fracture in three-
ferritic steels.
point bending using a pendulum. The main parameter measured in the
Standardization efforts between the First and Second World Wars
Charpy test is the energy required to fracture the specimen. The prin­
improved the quality assurance of the test and defined specific specimen
ciple of the test is presented in Fig. 1. In the test, a certain potential
geometries [1,2]. It was not, however, until during and after the Second
energy, defined by mass of striker and height of fall, is effectively
World War that the Charpy test was developed to a quantitative material
transformed into kinetic energy, part of which is used to fracture the test
testing method.
specimen with the remaining kinetic energy being transformed back to
In the beginning, when the test was not fully standardized, several
potential energy, defined by mass of striker and height of rise. The
different specimen and notch configurations were introduced. The most
height difference of the striker between start and end of test gives the
common notch geometry today is the V-notch, but other geometries are
energy used to break the specimen. The test is ingenious in its simplicity,
or have been sometimes used. Depending on notch geometry, the test is
in that the only instrumentation needed is an angle transducer dial to
known as the Charpy-V impact test (CVN) or Charpy-U impact test
give the beginning and end test angles, from which the spent energy can
(CUN) or even Charpy-keyhole. The U-notch has normally a radius of 1
simply be calculated when the length of arm and striker mass are known.
mm, compared to the V-notch which has a root radius of 0.25 mm. The
For metals with body-centred cubic lath structures, like ferritic
U-notch specimens vary mainly in the notch depth as shown in Fig. 3.
steels, the materials’ toughness experiences a transition from brittle to
The Charpy-keyhole specimen and the standard Charpy-U specimen
ductile with increasing temperature (Fig. 2). The temperature range,
have a notch depth of 5 mm, compared to the 2 mm of the Charpy-V
where this transition occurs, is called the ductile-to-brittle transition

E-mail address: Kim.Wallin@kwsolutions.fi.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpvp.2022.104829
Received 13 September 2022; Received in revised form 10 October 2022; Accepted 12 October 2022
Available online 21 October 2022
0308-0161/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
K. Wallin International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 200 (2022) 104829

Nomenclature J-R Tearing resistance based on the J-integral

KCU Charpy-U impact energy
a Notch depth KV Charpy-V impact energy
a/W Relative notch depth Mesnager Charpy-U specimen with 2 mm notch depth according to
b Ligament size GOST 9454-78
B Specimen thickness MesnagerUS Mesnager upper shelf energy
CPC Charpy specimen with sharp notch SE(B) Single edge notched bend specimen
CUN Charpy-U notch specimen with 5 mm notch depth T Temperature
according to ASTM E23 TC2D35 J/cm Charpy-V specimen 35 J/cm2 transition temperature
CUNUS CUN specimen upper shelf energy TC2M35 J/cm Mesnager specimen 35 J/cm2 transition temperature
CUNUSb Upper shelf energy for any 1 mm root radius U-notch TC2U35 J/cm Charpy-U specimen 35 J/cm2 transition temperature
specimen with ligament size b TC2V35 J/cm Charpy-V specimen 35 J/cm2 transition temperature
CVN Charpy-V notch specimen TC2X35 J/cm Charpy specimen 35 J/cm2 transition temperature where
CVNUS Charpy-V upper shelf energy X refers to either M, D or U
DVM Charpy-U notch specimen with 3 mm notch depth T-stress Elastic constraint parameter
according to DIN 50115 W Specimen height
DVMUS DVM specimen upper shelf energy Δa Crack extension
E Energy ρ Notch root radius
J J-integral σ Standard deviation
Ji J-integral value at onset of ductile tearing σY Yield strength
JT J-intgral corresponding to a specific T-stress

Fig. 2. Schematic description of ductile-to-brittle transition behaviour typical

Fig. 1. Principle of the Charpy pendulum impact test.
specimen. These two specimen types give similar results and can be
treated as one geometry. The Mesnager specimen, used mainly in Russia,
has a notch depth of 2 mm, same as the Charpy-V specimen and the DVM
specimen, standardized in DIN 50115, has a notch depth of 3 mm. The
other dimensions of the specimen are the same: Height = 10 mm,
Thickness = 10, Width = 55 mm and Span width = 40 mm. There are
other more unusual U-notches with larger radiuses and varying notch
depths, but these specimen geometries are outside the scope of the
present work, due to a very scarce use for structural metals.
Variants of the Charpy test include also the Izod test and the Schnadt
specimen. These are not addressed here in detail because of their limited
use. The notch and specimen thickness and height, for the Izod specimen
are, according to BS 131–1:1961, identical to Charpy-V, but the spec­
imen length and type of loading is different. The Schnadt specimen has a
hardened steel pin inserted in a hole parallel to and behind the notch,
replacing the material normally under compression in the Charpy tests.
Usually, the notch is the same as for the Charpy-V specimen, but other
of body-centred cubic metals.
geometries are also possible.
It was found that the scatter is less, and the ductile-to-brittle tran­
sition is better defined with the CVN geometry. Therefore, most of the
early impact test configurations have disappeared, leaving the CVN
specimen as the main geometry, but many different specimen versions
are still being used to some extent. More importantly, vintage data
corresponding to something else than CVN data may be the only infor­
mation available for older structures, still in use. For such cases, it is
imperative to have a correlation between CVN and different U-notch
geometries, to enable an engineering assessment of the structure. There
have been published some relations between different specimens shown
in Fig. 4 [3–5], but they have only focused on the relations corre­
sponding to upper shelf (or ductile fracture). A general correlation, that
would also cover the ductile-to-brittle transition, does not exist at the
moment.
2. Physical considerations
The two main obstacles to encounter when trying to correlate CVN

2
K. Wallin
with different U-notch specimens are the different constraint of the
specimens and the different ligament size being fractured during the
test. The constraint effect plays a major role in the lower part of the
transition region, whereas also the ligament size plays a significant role
close to and on the upper shelf, corresponding to ductile fracture. This
applies also for materials not showing a ductile-to-brittle transition. The
constraint is affected by two parameters, the notch acuity, and the notch
depth.
The notch acuity affects mainly the crack initiation. This is high­
lighted in Fig. 5, where the effect of notch root radius on the effective J-R
behaviour for a S690 steel tested in three-point bending [6]. The tests
were performed as multi-specimen tests to minimize any errors in the
crack growth measurements. The tearing resistance after crack initiation
is practically unaffected by the notch acuity, but there is a strong effect
on the initiation toughness as seen in Fig. 6. The notch root effect on
initiation toughness is not linear but decreases with increasing notch
root radius.
In a Charpy impact test, in the case of ductile fracture, the initiation
energy constitutes only a small part of the total energy needed to break
the specimen, but it still leads to a clear effect of notch root radius on the
impact energy. Fig. 7 shows impact toughness results for shallow
notched specimens with different root radius. The data sets were fitted
by a power law expression with a shared exponent. The notch root radius
effect follows basically a ρ0.94, close to unity, dependence, but for
shallow notches of higher toughness materials where there is more
plasticity the notch acuity effect is proportionally smaller as seen in the
figure. In this case the loss of constraint due to plasticity starts to
overwhelm the notch root effect. For deep notches the effect of notch
acuity is clear as shown in Fig. 8 with impact toughness test results for a
cast duplex stainless steel [10]. The notch depth was in this case kept
constant at 5 mm, which is deep enough to avoid any constraint issues
due to shallow notches. As seen in Fig. 8, the notch acuity affects both
the upper shelf toughness as well as the ductile-to-brittle transition
region.
The other constraint effect is related to the notch depth. For deep
notches, the plasticity is contained in the ligament, but for shallow
notches, plasticity spreads also to the front side of the notch, thus
decreasing constraint. In the case of crack like notches, the constraint
can be described with the T-stress [11]. Fig. 9 shows the T-stress at limit
load for a three-point bend specimen.
For deep notches, the T-stress is comparatively unaffected by crack
depth, but for shallow notches the T-stress becomes increasingly nega­
tive, increasing the materials tearing resistance. This is highlighted in
Fig. 10, where tearing resistance curves for an HY 80 steel, with different
depth cracks in three-point bend specimens, are shown [12]. The crack
depths larger than a/W = 0.39 fall basically in the same scatter band, but
shallower cracks lead to higher tearing resistance curves. Thus, the
constraints of CUN, DVM and Mesnager specimens are different and
might show a notch depth effect. It should be emphasized that the
shallow notch effect is active only during the one or two first millimeters
of crack growth for the Mesnager and DVM specimen, after which also
they should behave as deep notched specimens. This is likely to reduce
Fig. 3. Charpy impact specimens covered here.
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International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 200 (2022) 104829
the overall shallow flaw effect.
Besides affecting the constraint, the notch depth affects also the
amount of material fracturing during the impact test. Providing that the
specimen fractures completely by ductile tearing, the crack needs to
grow through the whole ligament of the specimen. If the tearing resis­
tance of two different cracks is the same, the specimen with the smaller
ligament will show a lower impact energy. It has been shown that the
effect of ligament size on impact energy can be approximated in the form
of Eq. (1) [13], where C is a constant, B is the specimen thickness, b is the
ligament size and m describe the steepness of the tearing resistance
curve, being a function of material toughness and notch acuity. The
value of m for notches wary with upper shelf energy [10] but is for CVN
energies in the range 100–200 J/cm2 generally close to 0.8.
E
= C⋅bm (1)
B⋅b
Fig. 11 shows two examples of the effect of ligament size on the
impact energy. Up to a ligament size of about 7 mm (a/W = 0.3) the
results follow well Eq. (1), but after this, the shallow flaw effect becomes
significant and there is an upswing in the impact energy. This is due to
the T-stress effect for shallow flaws. In the case of deep similar acuity
notches, the constraint is approximately constant so that only the liga­
ment size effect in line with Eq. (1) will affect the impact energy. A
ligament of 8 mm is to some extent affected by the shallow flaw effect,
but the effect is still not very large. Fig. 12 shows the effect of acuity on
deep notches for the cast duplex stainless steel shown in Fig. 8 [10].
Since the constraint is similar, the transition region is unaffected by
notch depth, the main effect being in the upper shelf toughness. The
upper shelves differ in this case in line with Eq. (1) for m = 0.8.
For brittle fracture, only the difference in constraint needs to be
accounted for, but for ductile fracture also the amount of tearing in the
test plays a role. Next the different specimen types will be analyzed in
more detail.
3. Comparison of different impact specimen results
Since the effect of notch depth and notch acuity are different for
ductile and brittle fracture, it is logical to investigate the two fracture
mechanisms separately. The following assessments are based on a va­
riety of published sources [7,10,15–34,37]. The materials cover
different strength steels, ferritic, duplex and stainless steels and Tita­
nium and Aluminum alloys. Two parameters were evaluated from the
raw data, the 35 J/cm2 transitions temperature and the upper shelf
(ductile fracture) energy. The energy level 35 J/cm2 was selected
because it corresponds to 27/28 J for a standard CVN specimen, and this
transition temperature is commonly used in steel quality definitions. Use
of a higher energy would lead to different amounts of ductile fracture in
the specimens and this would introduce one additional parameter
affecting the comparison. Using a value of 35 J/cm2 minimizes the effect
of ductile tearing. The uncertainty in the evaluated values is in the range
of 10% for upper shelf energy and 10 ◦ C for the transition temperature
estimates.
K. Wallin
Fig. 4. Published relations between different impact test energies for ductile fracture [3–5].
Fig. 5. Effect of notch acuity on the tearing resistance of a S690 steel [6].
3.1. Mesnager vs CVN upper shelf
The Mesnager and the CVN specimen are most close in geometry.
Both specimens have a 2 mm deep notch. The only difference lies in the
notch acuity. Fig. 13 shows a comparison of the upper shelf energy
measured by Mesnager and CVN specimens [7,24–28,32,34].
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International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 200 (2022) 104829
Fig. 6. Effect of notch acuity on the ductile initiation toughness for a
S690 steel.
Fig. 13 contains one outlier. It corresponds to an AISI 17-4 PH high
strength steel with a yield strength of 1213 MPa tested at ambient
temperature [26]. It may involve a misprint or the CVN specimen may
not have been on the upper shelf. Three other heats of the same steel
follow the same trend as the other materials. Yield strength does not
K. Wallin International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 200 (2022) 104829

Fig. 9. T-stress at limit load for a three-point bend specimen [11].

Fig. 7. Effect of notch acuity on impact energy for three different steels [7–9].

Fig. 10. Effect of crack depth on the tearing resistance of a HY 80 steel tested in
three-point bending [12].

Fig. 8. Effect of notch acuity on Charpy impact energy [10].

have a noticeable effect on the relation. At low toughness values, the

CVN energies are on the average only 60% of the Mesnager energy, but
at high toughness the relation comes closer to the 1/1 line. This is due to
different constraint for low toughness, where initiation toughness forms
a larger proportion of the total energy. At high toughness, the initiation
toughness plays a lesser role of the total energy and also the CVN
specimen begins to lose constraint, making it more in line with the
Mesnager specimen. Overall, the relation can be expressed in the form of
Eq. (2). The standard deviation of the relation is 12%, a value that is
slightly larger than the uncertainty in the individual upper shelf energy
estimates.
[ / 2]
CVNUS ≈ 0.24⋅Mesnager1.25US J cm (2)

The Mesnager specimen was compared to the DVM specimen with

respect to upper shelf toughness to see if the upper shelf energy follows
Eq. (1). The relation is shown in Fig. 14 [24,25]. The relation follows
well the theoretical Eq. (1) with a power of 0.8. This indicates that the
constraint difference between Mesnager and DVM specimens is not Fig. 11. Effect of notch depth on the measured impact energy [8,14].
significant. The scatter is of the same magnitude as the uncertainty in

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K. Wallin International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 200 (2022) 104829

Fig. 14. Relation between upper shelf (ductile fracture) energy for Mesnager
Fig. 12. Effect of notch depth on Charpy impact energy [10].
and DVM specimens [24,25].

( )0,8
8 [ / 2]
CVNUS ≈ ⋅ 0.24⋅DVM1.25
US J cm (3)
7

3.3. CUN vs CVN upper shelf

The linear relationship between Mesnager and CUN specimen upper

shelf indicates that the same form as in Eq. (2) should be applicable also
for the relation between CUN and CVN specimens. Fig. 17 shows a
comparison of the upper shelf energy measured by CUN and CVN
specimens [15–22,37]. The data consists of both CUN and Keyhole
specimens. The relation is well explained by a combination of Eqs. (1)
and (2), leading to Eq. (4). The scatter is like the relation between
Mesnager and CVN, being slightly above the uncertainty in the indi­
vidual upper shelf energy estimates.
( )0,8 [ ]
8 J
CVNUS ≈ ⋅ 0.24⋅CUN1.25
US 2
(4)
5 cm

3.4. Mesnager vs CVN transition temperature

Fig. 13. Relation between upper shelf (ductile fracture) energy for Mesnager
and CVN specimens [7,24–28,32,34].
upper shelf energy estimate.
Fig. 15 shows the relations between Mesnager, DVM and CUN upper
shelf energies [23]. Even though the data covers only 2 steels, the upper
shelf energies for these specimen geometries follow Eq. (1). This in­
dicates that the constraint plays a significant role only for the compar­
ison of U-notch and V-notch. The notch depth is sufficiently well
described with Eq. (1) applying an exponent of 0.8.
3.2. DVM vs CVN upper shelf
Similarly to the upper shelf comparisons, it is logical to first consider
the 35 J/cm2 correlations between Mesnager and CVN specimens.
Fig. 18 shows the resulting relation [7,25,28,29,34] which has the form
of Eq. (5).
TCV35J/cm2 ≈ TCM35J/cm2 + 56◦ C (5)
The scatter in the relation is approximately 14 ◦ C. The estimated
uncertainty in the individual transition temperature estimates is of the
order of 10 ◦ C. The large difference in temperature is due to a combi­
nation of notch acuity effect and a different response to notch depth.

3.5. DVM vs CVN transition temperature

The linear relationship between Mesnager and DVM specimen upper
shelf indicates that the same form as in Eq. (2) should be applicable also
Fig. 19 shows the resulting 35 J/cm2 correlations between DVM and
for the relation between DVM and CVN specimens. Fig. 16 shows a
CVN specimens [24,25,27] which has the form of Eq. (6).
comparison of the upper shelf energy measured by DVM and CVN
specimens [24,25,29]. The relation is well explained by a combination TCV35J/cm2 ≈ TCD35J/cm2 + 36◦ C (6)
of Eqs. (1) and (2), leading to Eq. (3). The scatter is similar to the relation
between Mesnager and CVN, is slightly above the uncertainty in the Remarkably, there is a 20 C difference between Mesnager and DVM
◦

individual upper shelf energy estimates. specimens. The scatter is somewhat larger than for the relation with
Mesnager specimens, but the difference is not very large and falls within
the statistical uncertainty of the standard deviation estimate.

6
K. Wallin
Fig. 15. Relations between Mesnager (a), DVM (b) and CUN upper shelf energies [23].
Fig. 16. Relation between upper shelf (ductile fracture) energy for DVM and
CVN specimens [24,25,29].
3.6. CUN vs CVN transition temperature
Fig. 20 shows the resulting 35 J/cm2 correlations between CUN and
CVN specimens [15–22] which has the form of Eq. (7). The difference to
the relation with DVM specimens is only 2 ◦ C and the scatter is between
the values obtained for Mesnager and DVM specimens. It appears that
the overall standard deviation for all three relations is approximately
15 ◦ C.
TCV35J/cm2 ≈ TCU35J/cm2 + 34◦ C (7)
4. Discussion
The upper shelf relations basically show only a notch acuity effect.
The effect of notch depth is fully described by the amount of ductile
crack growth required to break the specimen. The ductile fracture
constraint effect is clearly less than that of cleavage fracture as shown in
Fig. 21Fig. 22 for the J-integral [11]. This is a direct result of the
different failure mechanisms. Cleavage fracture is mainly dependent on
the crack opening stress, whereas ductile tearing is dependent both on
hydrostatic stress and shear strain. Since shear strain increases with
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International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 200 (2022) 104829
Fig. 17. Relation between upper shelf (ductile fracture) energy for CUN and
CVN specimens [15–22,37].
decreasing constraint, the overall constraint effect is less than for
cleavage fracture.
Since the upper shelf relation between CVN and different Charpy-U
specimens varies in magnitude depending on upper shelf energy, it in­
dicates an effect of plasticity, so that the upper shelf energy differences
are smaller for higher upper shelf energy and thus higher plasticity.
Upper shelf energy is not the only parameter affecting the plasticity, but
also the yield strength of the material. Thus, one would expect also yield
stress to affect the upper shelf energy relation. For a limited number of
test results, also the yield strength information was available. For the
rest, the yield streght was estimated based on steel type and grade.
The higher the yield strength, the larger the difference in upper shelf
energies, for a specific upper shelf energy. This is fully in line with the
theoretical expectations. The yield strength effect is not very significant,
a 1000 MPa yield strength increase causes only approximately a 10%
change in the relation. Including the yield strength effect enables to
express a general upper shelf relation for CVN and different U-notch
specimens, Eq. (8). In this case CUNUSb refers to any 1 mm root radius U-
notch specimen with ligament size b.
The standard deviation of Eq. (8) for the Mesnager specimen is 10%.
This indicates that the uncertainty in the individual upper shelf
K. Wallin
Fig. 18. Relation between 35 J/cm2 transition temperatures for Mesnager and
CVN specimens [7,25,28,29,34].
Fig. 19. Relation between 35 J/cm2 transition temperatures for DVM and CVN
specimens [24,25,27].
estimates is only of the order of 7%.
The upper shelf energies did not show a significant shallow flaw
effect for the investigated geometries. This is partly due to the lower
sensitivity to constraint for ductile fracture and because the shallow flaw
effect is active only during the early part of the crack growth. After 1 mm
crack growth, the Mesnager specimen should be similar to the DVM
specimen, with regards of constraint. Thus, Eq. (8) is theoretically sound
and justifiable for all Charpy-U notches with a root radius of 1 mm.
Contrary to the upper shelf behaviour, the transition temperatures
are strongly influenced by both the notch acuity effect as well as the
shallow flaw effect. As in the case of upper shelf, the Mesnager specimen
should be the simplest to evaluate against the CVN specimen.
Fig. 23afig23 shows the relation given in Eq. (5), plotted against the
yield strength. The data shows no effect of yield strength on the relation.
There is a small offset from Eq. (5), but this is due to the limited size of
the data set. Fig. 23b shows the relation given in Eq. (5), plotted against
CVN upper shelf energy. The data also shows no effect of upper shelf
energy on the relation. The reason for the insensitivity of yield strength
and upper shelf on the TCV35 J/cm2 - TCM35 J/cm2 difference is the
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International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 200 (2022) 104829
Fig. 20. Relation between 35 J/cm2 transition temperatures for CUN and CVN
specimens [15–22].
Fig. 21. Comparison of constraint effects for cleavage fracture and ductile
tearing [11].
limited plasticity and crack growth at this energy level. The constraint
effects are thus not significantly affected by plasticity and should follow
the elastic stress fields quite well.
Fig. 24fig24 shows a synthesis of the different specimen behaviours.
The constraint effects can be separated into a notch acuity effect and a
shallow flaw effect.
Fig. 23. Effect of yield strength (a) and upper shelf energy on the
TC2V35 J/cm - TC2M35 J/cm difference.
Fig. 25 shows for comparison the effect of notch depth on fatigue pre-
cracked specimens analyzed by the ASTM E1921 T0 refence tempera­
ture. The behaviour is quite similar to the U-notch transition tempera­
ture trend in Fig. 24. The pre-cracked specimens shallow flaw data show
a yield strength effect. It is likely that the same effect affects the U-notch
specimens, but the available data did not enable an investigation of this
possibility.
The transition temperature was, by necessity, estimated by manual
fitting to the available data. The uncertainty in the individual transition
temperatures was, therefore, estimated to be approximately 10 ◦ C. This
means that the expected uncertainty in the transition temperature
K. Wallin International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 200 (2022) 104829

5. Summary and conclusions

The Charpy impact test is more than 120 years old, and it is the most
common mechanical test to evaluate the fracture resistance of a struc­
tural metal. Nearly all structural integrity assessment procedures use it.
The “standard” notch used in the Charpy impact test is the 2 mm deep V-
notch with a 0.25 mm root radius, but other geometries are or have been
sometimes used. Depending on notch geometry, the test is known as the
Charpy-V impact test (CVN) or Charpy-U impact test (CUN) or even
Charpy-keyhole. The U-notch has normally a radius of 1 mm. The U-
notch specimens vary mainly in the notch depth. The Charpy-keyhole
specimen and the standard Charpy-U specimen have a notch depth of
5 mm. These two specimen types give similar results and can be treated
as one geometry. The Mesnager specimen, used mainly in Russia, has a
notch depth of 2 mm and the DVM specimen has a notch depth of 3 mm.
The scatter is less, and the ductile-to-brittle transition is better

Fig. 22. Shows the relation given in Eqs. (2)–(4), plotted against the yield
strength. The data shows a weak, but clear effect of yield strength on
the relation.

differences is √2 × 10 ◦ C. This is of the same order as found experi­

mentally. This indicates that the yield strength effects are not large and
Eqs. (5)–(7) should be applicable as such.
A recent work has proposed a comprehensive sub-sized and minia­
ture CVN specimen conversion methodology [36]. Unfortunately, the
same methodology does not work here. The CVN specimens that the
conversion methodology was developed for all have similar levels of
constraint. The U-notch specimens have clearly lower constraint than
the CVN specimen. This causes the transition region to be wider than for
the CVN specimen. This is of course the main reason why the CVN ge­
ometry has become the “standard” Charpy specimen geometry, but it
also makes a conversion methodology covering the whole transition
range practically impossible.
Fig. 24. Separation of notch depth and notch acuity effects on 35 J/cm2
transition temperature. X refers to either Mesnager, DVM or CUN.

Figure 23. Effect of yield strength on the upper shelf energy relation between Mesnager and CVN specimen.
( 8)0.8
⋅0.25⋅CUN1.25 [ / ]
CVNUS ≈ b σY
USb
mm, J cm2 , MPa (8)
1 + 9000

9
K. Wallin
Fig. 25. Effect of relative crack depth on the T0 transition temperature. Ma­
terials separated based on yield strength at T0 temperature [35].
defined with the CVN geometry. Therefore, most of the other impact test
configurations have disappeared, but many of them are still being used
to some extent. More importantly, vintage data corresponding to
something else than CVN data may be the only information available for
older structures, still in use. For such cases, it is imperative to have a
correlation between CVN and different U-notch geometries, to enable an
engineering assessment of the structure. There have been published
some relations between different specimens, but they have only focused
on the relations corresponding to upper shelf (or ductile fracture). A
correlation, that would also include the ductile-to-brittle transition, has
not been proposed before.
Here, the physical aspects of the different notch geometries have
been considered, and based on a large set of literature data the following
conclusions can be made.
• A simple upper shelf relation covering all four considered U-notch
geometries was developed.
• The upper shelf relation is weakly affected by the materials yield
strength, in line with the physical assumptions regarding the effect of
constraint on ductile fracture.
• Correlations for the ductile-to-brittle transition was determined in
terms of the 35 J/cm2 transition temperature, which corresponds to
the 27/28 J transition temperature for a CVN specimen.
• The ductile-to-brittle transition correlation is strongly affected by
specimen constraint, so that different U-notch geometries provide
different relations. However, the relations are fully in line with the
physical aspects of constraint related to notch acuity and notch
depth.The transition region for the U-notch geometries is wider than
for the CVN specimen. This makes a conversion methodology
covering the whole transition range practically impossible.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
All data taken from open litterature
Acknowledgements
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding
agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
10
International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 200 (2022) 104829
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