Verification of the analysis for fracture behaviour estimation of pressure vessels

Within the Nordic countries a four-year research programme in the area of elastic-plastic fracture mechanics was initiated in 1985. The main technical objective of the programme is to clarify how catastrophic, that is unstable, fracture can be prevented in pressure vessels and piping by using the leak-before-break concept. In this article the experimental details of the first tests are described and compared to various analytical and numerical (2D and 3D) analyses