Simulation of Mechanical Property and Fracture Behavior of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steel by Small Punch Test

Abstract

The life extension of the reactor requires the improvement of the material performance, especially the radiation resistance. At present, some data about the irradiation hardening and embrittlement behavior of reactor pressure vessel steel have been obtained, mainly the standard tensile properties, standard impact properties and so on. However, to understand the service behavior of materials at higher doses, higher neutron fluence radiation tests are needed. The problem is that because of the large size of the standard sample, if the irradiation dose continues to increase, the surface dose of the irradiated sample will be larger, and it is difficult to test after irradiation. In addition, if the irradiation sample can be replaced by smaller sample, the utilization space of the radiation channel will be greatly improved. The high-throughput characterization for irradiation performance of reactor pressure vessel steel can be achieved. Therefore, in this work, the small punch test of reactor pressure vessel material A508-3 steel was carried out at the temperatures ranging from -150 °C to room temperature. The performance data, such as tensile characteristics, yield strength and fracture energy, were obtained from load-deformation curves. Comparing the results of small punch test with the data obtained by standard tensile and impact test, the correlation on the performance data was established for A508-3 steel.