Interaction of residual stress with mechanical loading in a ferritic steel

A well-defined residual stress field was introduced into modified single edge notched bend, SEN(B), specimens by the ‘in-plane compression’ procedure in order to investigate the interaction between residual stress and applied mechanical loading. Numerical predictions of the residual stress field arising from the in-plane compression procedure are given along with details of the numerical fracture modelling and experimental fracture test results made on A533B ferritic steel specimens in the lower transition region at −150 °C. Use was made of a recently developed finite element post-processor capable of determining path-independent J-integral values in the presence of residual stress fields. The paper compares the experimental results to predictions made using a probabilistic ‘global approach’ based on the conventional crack-tip parameters K and J and predictions made using a well-known structural integrity assessment code, R6 (Revision 4). It is shown that obtaining more accurate estimates of the crack driving force created by residual stresses leads to better correlation between experiments and predictions, and less conservatism in the assessment code.