Issue 50

J.M. Vasco-Olmo et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 49 (2019) 658-666; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.50.56 663 not strange since the upper limit establishes the separation between the elastic and plastic components. Therefore, these results obtained from the sensitivity analysis strengthen the definition of the loading range for describing the elastic behaviour. The equation obtained from this linear fit was employed to calculate the theoretical CTOD value corresponding to all analysed load levels. Thus, the CTOD offset was obtained from Eq. (1). The ranges of the elastic and plastic components of the CTOD can then be defined as shown in Fig. 6. exp 100 th th CTOD CTOD CTOD offset CTOD    (1) Figure 6 : Plot of CTOD through a complete loading cycle, showing its elastic and plastic components at a crack length of 9.40 mm for the specimen tested at R =0.1 (a) and 9.20 mm for the specimen tested at R = 0.6 (b) using 5 pixels (68.4 μm) and 10 pixels (136.8 μm) for the distances L x and L y , respectively. Figure 7 : Variation of CTOD offset as a function of the applied load at a crack length of 9.40 mm for the specimen tested at R = 0.1 (a) and 9.20 mm for the specimen tested at R = 0.6 (b). A value of 4% was set as the offset criterion to define the region of the curve corresponding to the elastic component of the CTOD. The CTOD offset is plotted against applied load (Fig. 7) and the elastic region is determined in accordance with the standard E 647 [30], where a CTOD change of 4% either side of the zero value is taken as representing the offset criterion (marked in Fig. 7 and corresponding with a compliance change of ≈4%) and establishes the elastic region in the offset CTOD trace. The letters A to D in Figs. 6a and 7a define the various regions in the CTOD loading cycle for the specimen tested at R = 0.1, where the load range between B and C (175 N to 450 N) defines elastic behaviour. It is clear in Fig. 6a that from point C there is a deviation from linearity up to point D , corresponding to the maximum applied load, and this is attributed to plastic deformation. The elastic and plastic ranges of CTOD can then be estimated by extrapolating the linear regime to the maximum load (Fig. 6). During unloading, there is a linear decrease in CTOD between points D and 0.000 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.010 0.012 0.014 0.016 0.018 0.020 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 CTOD (mm) P (N) loading unloading A B C D ΔCTOD p ΔCTOD el E R = 0.1 0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0.012 0.014 0.016 0.018 0.02 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 CTOD (mm) P (N) loading unloading ΔCTOD p ΔCTOD el C D E B R = 0.6 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 P (N) CTOD offset (%) ±4% offset A B C D R = 0.1 400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 800 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 P (N) CTOD offset (%) ±4% offset B C D R = 0.6 (a) (b) (a) (b)