The simulation of the fourth spinning cylinder test using damage mechanics

During the last decade, several large-scale tests programs have been mounted world-wide to validate the fracture mechanics principles employed in the structural integrity assessment of LWR pressure vessels. The fourth spinning cylinder test was a thermal shock experiment conducted at AEA Technology on a slowly spinning cylinder that contained two semi-circular cracks on the inner surface, one of 60 mm radius and the other, 40 mm. A small amount of ductile tearing at the position of maximum driving force of each defect triggered a cleavage event, which arrested leaving a thin ligament of uncracked material on the inner surface. The Damage Mechanics parameters of the A508 Class 3 steel from which the cylinder was made have been tuned on compact tension data obtained in the cleavage and transition regimes. A full model of the cylinder using the tuned material response provides the simulated ductile crack growth performance of this test.