Experimental set-up for ductile fracture propagation due to thermal shock; simulation of the temperature field

Regarding nuclear energy in France, the adopted strategy involves significant investment in Long-Term Operation projects. Among these projects, one category focuses on developing accurate tools for structural integrity assessment. In this frame, this work aims at developing a ductile tearing test induced by thermal shock. A literature review of the FALSIRE project, which investigated the experimental thermal shock in large components, was carried out. This review highlights the low probability of ductile tearing induced by thermal shock and, therefore, the difficulty of reproducing it experimentally. To overcome these difficulties and make use of the Anonymous 's experimental facilities, a pre-existing thermal fatigue test was adapted for ductile tearing. The tested specimen is a 20 mm thickness tube manufactured with a thermal aged CF8M steel. The thermal shock loading is produced through the combination of high-power induction heating (Hot thermal shock) and water cooling (Cold thermal shock). A thermomechanical finite element model has been developed for the study. This model is used to pre-design the specimen geometry, to ensure significant ductile tearing. Finally, the thermal fields predicted by the numerical model are compared to experimental results obtained from a highly instrumented thermal specimen.