Influence of irradiation on the ductile fracture of a reactor pressure vessel steel

The mechanical properties of 15Ch2MFA steel were characterised by tensile and instrumented Charpy tests. The fracture surfaces of Charpy specimens broken in the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature range contain a certain proportion of ductile fracture correlated to fracture energy. Measured ductile crack lengths show the same dependence on fracture deflection and/or fracture energy for irradiated and non-irradiated specimens. The decrease of upper shelf energy with increasing neutron fluence could be explained by an increasing amount of shear fracture.