Design and Use of Nonstandard Tensile Specimens for Irradiated Materials Testing

Abstract

Miniature, nonstandard, tensile-type specimens have been developed for use in radiation effects experiments at high energy neutron sources where the useful radiation volume is as small as a few cubic centimeters. The end result of our development is a 12.7-mm-long sheet-type specimen, with a 5.1-mm-long, 1.0-mm-wide gage section, which is fabricated from 0.25-mm-thick sheet stock by a punching technique. Data obtained using miniature specimens of an austenitic, a ferritic and a precipitation hardened alloy are in good agreement with data obtained using much larger specimens. This finding indicates that miniature tensile specimen data may be used for engineering design purposes and that miniature tensile specimen technology may be applicable to fields other than the study of radiation effects. This paper reviews the miniature specimen technology which was developed and reports the data which were obtained.

Use of Miniature Tensile Specimen for Measurement of Mechanical Properties

“…The limited material available due to scooped out volume from any inservice component restricts the shape and size of the test specimens. The basic philosophy adopted in various test standards for conventional tensile test specim specimens such standardisation is not availabl specimens [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The miniaturisation of spec material behaviour in the microscale compared limited to the strength dependence on cross-sec only to specimen size and geometry, but also, t the cross-section, anisotropy due to microstr inhomogeneity etc., surface effect and residua characteristics dependence on cross-sectiona conditions, gage length etc.…”

“…ructure and crystallographic texture, micro-structural an al stress. These papers [1][2][3][4][5][6] also describe the strength a al area of test specimen, specimen fabrication metho he aim of evaluation of mechanical properties of in-serv of material using a scooping device, Fig. 1 This paper is limited to the evaluation of mechanical properties using the miniature tensile test specimen.…”

Assessment of tensile strength using small punch test for transversely isotropic aluminum 2024 alloy produced by equal channel angular pressing

“…(13) is regarded as the equivalent strength and is identical to Eq. (16). Therefore, the absolute value of the plastic flow strength for the L-specimen can be expressed in the following form:…”

“…However, it is experimentally difficult to produce a homogeneously large sample using a large billet because the enhanced loading necessarily requires ECAP facilities that are very complex to construct. The second feasible method is to conduct tensile tests using small specimens of about 10 mm in length [16], which is equal to the transverse dimension of ECAP rods. However, this method may require size-correction of the measured strength to be able to predict the mechanical properties of bulk material [17].…”