Modified Shape of Dynamic Master Curves due to Adiabatic Effects

AbstractWithin a joint project of IWM/Freiburg and MPA/Stuttgart the fracture toughness of a 22 NiMoCr 3 7 steel (A 508 Cl.2) was characterized at IWM with SE(B)10/10- und SE(B)40/20-specimens at -20 °C and high crack loading rates in the range of 103 to 106 MPa√m s-1, see Böhme et al. (2012 and 2013). The single temperature Master Curve evaluation according to ASTM E1921 and Wallin (2011) resulted in part in 5%-lower-bound fracture toughness versus temperature curves below the deterministic ASME lower bound KIR-reference-curve. At a first glance, this seems to violate the ASME KIR-concept, however, possibly this just indicates, that the conventional MC-evaluation has to be modified for elevated loading rates. Adiabatic heating in the vicinity of the crack tip could be one reason for that, as already argued in Schindler (2013 and 2015).Therefore, additional SE(B)-tests at temperatures of -20 °C, 0 °C and +20 °C were performed at IWM within the current follow-up joint IWM-MPA project. The new IWM-results show in agreement with previous investigations by Viehrig et al. (2010) and Schindler et al. (2013 and 2015) that the Master Curves at elevated loading rates are steeper than at quasistatic loading, probably due to local adiabatic heating in the vicinity of the crack tip. Therefore, the temperature field around the crack tip has been measured with a high speed infrared camera and has been compared to results of a numerical simulation. Up to crack initiation, a local adiabatic rise in temperature of the order of magnitude of about 60 K was measured and calculated in the vicinity of the crack tip at a crack loading rate of about 106 MPa√m s-1. In order to take into account this adiabatic effect, the dynamic master curves were evaluated by applying an adjusted MC shape parameter. This finally leads to more plausible results for the dynamic Master Curves. Thus, the choice of a rate dependent shape parameter p should be considered for future modifications of the elevated loading rate appendix of ASTM E1921