B.

Shashank Dutt
Present Scientific Officer - C
Affiliation & Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research
Organization Kalpakkam
Area of  More than 2 years experience in:
Specialization/
Experience/ Characterization of fracture toughness
and fatigue crack growth

Title of paper Fracture toughness of RAFM steel (Reduced

activation Ferrite-Martensitic)

Authors B.Shashank Dutt, M. Nani Babu,

S. Venugopal, G. Sasikala, A.K. Bhaduri
Fracture toughness of RAFM (Reduced
activation Ferrite-Martensitic) steel

B. Shashank Dutt*, M. Nani Babu, S. Venugopal,

G. Sasikala, A.K. Bhaduri

Materials Technology Division,

Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam-603 102,
*email- shashank@igcar.gov.in
Introduction – Material selection,
fracture toughness testing

Experimental

Results and Discussion

Conclusions
 First blanket wall

Material properties required:

Low residual reactivity
Void swelling resistance
Lower thermal expansion coefficient
Higher thermal conductivity
Better toughness

RAFM (Reduced activation Ferrite-Martensitic) steel

selected as material for test blanket applications
Tensile properties reported in this class of steels in
both un-irradiated and irradiated conditions

Studies on elastic-plastic fracture toughness, for

irradiated and un-irradiated condition limited

Present study –Fracture toughness of RAFM steels,

for un-irradiated condition at– 298, 653 and 823 K
 Mathew et al, Journal of Nuclear Materials, 2011, (In press)

RAFM steels indigenously developed by

IGCAR and MIDHANI
Tensile, creep studies of RAFM steels also being
done at IGCAR
The resistance to fracture of a material is known
as its fracture toughness
Fracture toughness depends on
 Temperature, environment, loading rate,
 composition, microstructure, specimen geometry
Fracture toughness parameters
K (stress intensity factor)- stress based estimate
CTOD (Crack-tip opening displacement) – strain
based estimate
 J (the J-integral) is an energy-based estimate of
fracture toughness
 J-calculations
J = Jel + Jpl
J = Crack extension resistance

Jel = Elastic component of J =


K 2 1  2 
E
K = f(P, a, B, W)
Jpl = Plastic component of J
K = stress intensity factor,  = Poisson’s ratio
E = Young’s Modulus

    Apl ( i )  Apl ( i 1) 
  a( i )  a( i 1) 
J pl ( i )   J pl ( i 1)       1   ( i 1) 

 b
  B N 
  b( i 1) 

  2.0  0.522 b
W
b Apl - Instantaneous area under load-
  1 . 0  0 . 76 displacement curve
W b = uncracked ligament (W-a).
 Fracture toughness testing
Test specimens
Compact tension (CT) specimen
Single edge notch bend (SENB)specimen
Disk shaped compact (DC(T)) specimen
J- R curve tests
Single specimen method- unloading compliance at
RT or by online determination of crack lengths at RT
and higher temperatures

Multiple specimen method- used when online

determination of crack lengths not possible
In the present investigation-
CT specimen was used-single specimen method
 Chemical composition (wt. %) of RAFM steel
C Mn Cr W Ta Nb Mo Ni Fe
0.08 0.56 9.05 1.0 0.063 0.0039 0.009 0.007 Bal.

Grade 91 steel
0.10 0.41 9.27 - - 0.074 0.95 0.33 Bal.

It is a modification of Grade 91 steel in which Mo

and Nb are replaced by W and Ta respectively.

Microstructure- Tempered martensite

 Experimental details

CT Specimen

Pre-Cracking
a0/W  0.5

Side Grooving 20%

J Testing
(ASTM E 1820) Side-grooved CT
specimen
Precracking-
Starting frequency- 106 Hz
Load range applied- 14-5 kN
Decreasing –stress intensity factor range
(K range = Kmax- Kmin)
As the crack propagated, K (stress intensity factor range = Kmax- Kmin)
was gradually reduced such that the crack was grown at loads not
exceeding (Pm)

0.4 B  y b 2
Pm 
( a 0  2W )
B- Thickness, b- remaining ligament width ,
σy- Flow stress = average value of YS and UTS
W-width, ao - initial crack length
 Fracture toughness test-
 Monotonic ramp test at constant displacement rate
(0.01 mm.s1) in servohydraulic machine
 On-line crack length measurement by
direct current potential drop (DCPD) technique
 Initial and final crack length measured after test,
using 9-point average method

Average of 9 -equally spaced points-measured for both

initial and final crack lengths
 J-R curves RAFM

J-blunting = 4*(σy)*(a) ,
σy- flow stress= 0.5 (YS+UTS)
 Fracture toughness comparison
J0.2
(kJ.m-2)
Test temperature
(K)
RAFM Grade 91*

298 106 186

653 131 117
823 160 178

Increase in toughness with temperature –RAFM steel

For Grade 91 steel decrease in toughness at 653 K- due
to dynamic strain ageing (DSA)

* B.Shashank Dutt, et al, Mat.Sci.Technol 2010 (accepted)

Comparison tensile results-RAFM and Grade 91
650 RAFM 800 RAFM
Grade 91 Grade 91

600 700
600
550
500
YS (MPa)

UTS, MPa
500
400
450 300

400 200
100
350
0
200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Test temperature, K Test temperature, K

22
RAFM
20
Grade 91 50
18
16
% Total elongation

% Reduction of area
40
14
12 30
10 RAFM
Grade 91
8 20
6
4 10
2
0 0
200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Test temperature, K Test temperature, K
 298 K 653 K

RAFM steels

298 K 653 K

Grade 91 steels
 Comparison with other results

800 Present results

Reference no-3
Reference no-4
700
600
500
-2
J0.2, kJ.m

400
300
200
100
0
300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Test temperature, K

Ref [3, 4] values reported for 6, 4.6 mm thick CT specimens- plane stress condition

3. Chaouadi et al, Journal of Nuclear Materials 403(2010) 15-18

4. Sokolov et al, Journal of Nuclear Materials 367–370 (2007) 68–73
 Conclusions
The values of ~ J0.2 at 298, 653 and 823 K were 106,
131 and 160 kJ.m-2 respectively

The values of ~ J0.2 were lower for RAFM compared to

Grade 91

Decrease in ~ J0.2 at 653 K- for Grade 91 due to DSA

Differences between present results and the values

reported in literature due to differences in specimen thickness
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